The War Privateer
by Spikey44
Summary: Fran I can think of no better way for the leading man to leave his mark on history. Think on it, we shall be heroes, the pirates who fought an evil empire to save the common folk'. A tale of war, escape, and self discovery. Ffamran and Balthier POV
1. Chapter 1

The War Privateer

_Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters belong to Square __Enix__ all unknown and unrecognisable characters are mine. _

_A/N: This is in fact two stories in one. The tale of __Ffamran's__ escape from __Archades__ and the story of __Balthier__ and Fran's exploits during the __Archadia-Dalmasca__ war. Certain characters and locations, __Einar/ __Remus/ __Ruthy__ and the town of __Veridree__ are my own creations and feature in my other story 'The Stuff Legends are made of'. You do not have to read that one to understand this one however. _

_Enjoy. _

Prologue: A friendly drink with an old acquaintance

He fervently did not wish to be here.

Would not be here at all if it wasn't for Raz, that bloody diminutive Bangaa and poor excuse for a pirate, who knew far more than he should and wasn't afraid to speak on it.

But, Balthier was forced to concede, it wasn't just the knowing looks and thinly veiled insinuations made while Fran was in ear shot that forced him to come here to this filthy hovel of a tavern, more a lean-to shack with moonshine, in the middle of the Highwaste.

It was his conscience, the barely perceptible but persistent voice of his past. Goading him, pushing him, demanding he meet with this man despite the fact that any debt owing was most definitely on the other man's side.

Balthier had committed a veritable cornucopia of crimes since assuming his 'pirate' name, some great, some small, yet it was not any of them that forced him to this place, waiting impatiently for this one particular ghost of his past.

It was the crime he committed under his own name, the only crime he considered truly his, the crime nobody really knows about, that motivates this guilty action; Ffamran's crime.

Ffamran's guilt drives Balthier to this place. Like a revenant rising from the grave to clutch at the last remnants of his life.

The life Balthier stole from him at the very moment of the young man's triumph. Perhaps, therefore, it is not Ffamran's guilt that drives him, but Balthier's own?

'You came then.'

Balthier looked up from the amber froth of his drink to watch the other man, tall, muscular, blonde, pull out a seat opposite him and sit down.

The man grinned at him, his hair in many unruly braids of different length, threaded with ribbons of different colour, his beard and moustache, in contrast, were neatly trimmed and styled.

'And you have not lost your capacity for stating the obvious, Hamish.'

Balthier drawled, having little inclination to feign the pretence of civility towards this man.

Hamish merely laughed; a rich braying sound that Balthier considered both inelegant and unrefined.

' Cheerful as ever Ffamran, and here I thought you'd be happy to see me.'

Balthier rankled against the use of _that _name, Hamish knew he no longer goes by it, and therefore used it deliberately. For this reason only Balthier refrained from giving the man the satisfaction of his discomfort and chose instead to ignore the slight.

' I am thrilled to see you beyond your wildest imaginings Hamish, now what is it you want?' He purred instead, unable to smooth out the wrinkle of irritation from his voice.

Hamish rapped his large, big knuckled hand against the splintered, unfinished surface of the table.

' The Empire plans to attack Nalbina, we can't let that happen, Ffamran.'

Balthier knew, of course, that war was on the horizon. A blind man could see it.

In fact, he had been laying some hefty wagers in the gambling dens of Ivalice in regards to the time, method and (inevitable) outcome of any military actions between either Archadia and Dalmasca or Nabradia for many weeks.

Fran found the whole thing contemptuous, that Humes should make sport and profit from war, Balthier in his darker moments had argued back that _that_ was the very reason Humes went constantly to war.

' Oh really?' Balthier drawled. ' Who is this 'we' you refer to?'

Hamish frowned, ' Raz tells me you've cut yourself free of old ties now, Ffamran. I heard about Veridree; impressive.'

Balthier did not let his mildly indifferent expression falter, Veridree was more than two months behind him and he still woke at night in a cold sweat, fingers seeking out the whip scars across his back.

'I'm sure I have no idea to what you refer.'

Hamish made a disgusted sound, 'You bloody Archadians with your double-talk.' He muttered something in the harsh, guttural dialect of his fallen home of Landis.

'The Army makes camp here in the Highwaste, but we are all marked men and the Empire's spies are everywhere. Our communications channels are blocked.'

'Your communications channels were not worth much to begin with. You Landissians are all blunt instruments.'

Balthier shot back, the obvious irritation he felt was not natural to his carefully maintained disposition. It belonged to Ffamran.

Hamish did not rise to the insult, but merely nodded, 'Aye, that's why I called you here. Landis has a saying, fight fire with fire. We don't have the means to find out what the Empire's about, but you do.'

Balthier raised one eyebrow in disingenuous surprise, ' Do I now? How is it that I am suddenly an expert on the Imperial war machine, pray tell?'

Hamish grinned, it was not a happy grin, ' Because it takes a Judge to know a Judge and an Archadian to know an Archadian, but it takes a cunning bastard to like you to ferret out that information.'

'I am never going back to Archades.' Balthier muttered mulishly, carefully maintained facade cracking and the inner voice slipping free.

'Then you'll find some other way of getting the information I need. My men and I have the arms to do real damage to the Empire; we have contacts within Dalmasca and Nabradia also.'

'Then I fail to see how you need me.' Balthier said briskly, rising from the table.

' We heard rumour before our sources took to the hills that Draklor's researchers abound Ivalice. Draklor powers the Imperial war machine and of late her hunger for fuel grows insatiable. We hear that Draklor's elusive chief of staff has been seen rooting about the Glen of Fatulla.'

Balthier had frozen in the process of shrugging on his light weight coat over his white shirt and silvery waistcoat; he met Hamish' eyes.

' I'll want payment, you have had all the charity you shall ever get from me.'

Hamish smiled broadly, ' Wouldn't expect it any other way from a _pirate. _Gil is easy enough to come by, if that's all you're wanting.'

Balthier nodded, ' I'll speak to Jules for you, depending on how expensive _he_ is I will have a price for my services when we speak next.'

He raised a speculative eyebrow, 'You and your _army _will be loitering about the Highwaste for a time I take it?'

Hamish ignored the verbal slight and reached across the table to finish off Balthier's forgotten pint.

' My men and I are creatures of war now Ffamran, thanks to the Empire, we will be here when war comes.'

'Very well then. Good day to you Hamish.'

Balthier nodded his head in a stiff, decidedly uncharacteristic farewell and turned to leave the dilapidated drinking den as quickly as he could while still maintaining the pretence of nonchalance.

War did not merely knock upon the doors of Dalmasca and Nabradia she would also make sport with pirates it appeared.

Balthier winced at the thought of explaining all this to Fran.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One: Inappropriate use of the good silverware

A/N: to differentiate story threads Ffamran's chapters will be written in italics.

* * *

_Ffamran__ first came to the solid conclusion that he had to leave as soon as possible over dinner with his father eight weeks before his seventeenth birthday. _

_For some reason that really made no difference in the grand scheme of things he and his father were dining in the __Bunansa__ grand dining room. _

_The polished ebony wood table could comfortably seat sixteen and he faced his father across its lonely expanse from one end of the table. _

_The meal was awful, but that was hardly surprising as it had been prepared by __Mildram,__ the __Bunansa__ family's faithful retainer, who was as old as sin but considerably less interesting and senile to boot. _

_Ffamran__ tried to tell himself the over-cooked, shrivelled up poultry on his plate, drowned in lumpy gravy, was quail, but he suspected it was in fact pigeon (he had spied Jim, __Mildram's__ equally ancient and utterly silent husband, shooting pigeons in the gardens yesterday). _

_It was not the food really that provided the impetus in __Ffamran's__ mind that he really needed to get out before he ended up as insane as every other living soul in this damnable family. _

_It was the fork. _

_The silver gilt dining fork now protruding from the soft meaty tissue of his left hand between thumb and first finger._

_He had driven the tines of the fork a good inch into his unresisting flesh, there was a reassuringly unpleasant throbbing heat around each penetrating spike of polished silver. _

_Across the ridiculous length of the table his father looked over from his highly involved conversation with himself to frown at __Ffamran_

'Son, are you aware there is a fork protruding from your hand?'

_Ffamran__, who had raised said hand and was observing with some amusement that the fork was embedded deep enough into his flesh that it did not even wobble when he lifted the hand, was surprised to have his father's attention._

'Yes Father. I was aware of this.'

_For a moment __Cidolfus __Bunansa's__ attention seemed rooted to something that was actually there, instead of the empty air just to his right shoulder that he had been convivially chattering too throughout dinner, but it did not last._

' Very well then. Now Venat you were saying..?'

_Ffamran__, his entire hand up to his wrist now twitching with a burning aching pain, jerked the fork from his flesh and grabbed up the crisp white napkin to stem the sudden eruption of blood that surged up from the white rimmed puncture wounds. _

_Wrapping the napkin around his hand and tying it awkwardly with his right, __Ffamran__ returned to his meal, exchanging his fork for a clean one. _

_The experiment was complete; this was really happening, it was not a dream. His father was talking to thin air, he had just stabbed himself with a dining utensil and they were eating pigeon and picking metal shot from the desiccated bird. _

_Watching the white napkin saturate with blood and begin to drip scarlet onto the embroidered table cloth, his left hand numb and aflame, __Ffamran__ scraped his chair back from the table (proper dining etiquette be damned) and, holding his bleeding hand above his head, started for the door._

'Ffamran the meal is not finished.'

_Ffamran__ paused and turned back to his father who was looking at him rather put out. _

'Forgive me Father but my hand needs medical attention, may I be excused from the table?'

_His father had been, without shadow of doubt, quite barking mad for the best part of a year and a half. _

_The first inkling that an obsessive and perfectionist character was tipping dangerously close to psychotic having crept into Cid's demeanour about six months before his trip to the __Jagd __Dafor_

' Venat? Have you objections?' _Cid questioned his invisible friend_.

_Since Cid's return from the __Jagd __Dafor__, his unique psychosis in full bloom, __Ffamran__ had given up attempting to halt his father's rampant, gleeful, spiral into total lunacy and, for the benefits of an easy life, simply went along with it. _

_Therefore he dutifully waited, eyes politely gazing at the empty air at his father's right hand, as blood, thick and heavy, dropped onto the floor from his left hand. _

'Yes, I agree.' _Cid nodded intently,__ pausing in his private conversation to__ cut a__ side__ways look towards his son_. ' Self mutilation is hardly a healthy hobby for a young man.'

_Cid abruptly__ halted his conversation and turned critical eyes on his son, __Ffamran__ steeled himself for what might come next. _

'Ffamran.'

_His blood was now running in swift moving channels down his forearm and soaking under his white dress shirt. The sodden napkin was beginning to come undone._

'Yes Father?'

'Venat is of the opinion you are acting strangely. Are you quite well?'

_Ffamran__ blinked. Swallowing convulsively he tried to silence the hysterical voice in his head that was screaming that the whole world was clearly insane and Cid was a fine one to talk about behaving strangely. _

' I am perhaps a little tired Father. Things have been hectic at the Judicial Barracks of late.' _Ffamran__ replied emptily. _

_For a moment something sparked in his father's abstracted eyes, some errant glimmer of the man's old intelligence, the uncanny skill he used to possess at reading __Ffamran's__ every lie. _

'Ffamran?'

_Ffamran__ held his breath, hope is always the last to die. _

'Yes Father?'

_Cid opened his mouth to say something then his head jerked sharply to the right, almost as if yanked in that direction by an invisible force. Cid's eyes focused on the empty air once more and __Ffamran__ knew he'd lost his father again. _

_Feeling hot and sick, his whole left arm throbbing with pain, __Ffamran__ allowed himself a sigh and made for the door. _

'Goodnight Father.'

_Cid, already returned to his ever-evolving conversation with his over active imagination, did not respond. _

_Ffamran__ knew he had to escape, the almost primal certainty reasserting itself as he tramped upstairs. He could not stay here and carry on this twisted charade any longer. _

_He just had yet to decide what form that escape would take. _

_Gazing dispassionately at his left hand, after he had imbibed a potion found in the medicines cabinet in the grand bathroom, he studied the raised scars rapidly forming over the four tiny puncture wounds. _

_There was something vulgar and unrefined about suicide, he mused, not to mention death did not allow one much of a future, and __Ffamran__ had never had much faith in a bountiful afterlife. _

_He looked into the gilt framed oval mirror and narrowed his eyes irritably at his own reflection. _

_Pale face, eyes sunken from lack of sleep, too thin, brown hair mousey and curling over his forehead (he would have to get a haircut). The boy in the mirror (he would like to say man but even his flexible mentality towards truth didn't bend that far) looked far too much like __Ffamran__ truly felt for his liking._

_Scared, alone, and facing two life altering decisions._

_Death or despair._

_He had proved he had the courage of his convictions. The courage to kill __himself__ if no other avenue of escape presented itself, so in reward of this minor pain inflicted to see if he could, he decided to give his brain a chance to manufacture a less lethal form of escape. _

_There would be life after __Ffamran __Mid __Bunansa__, he just had to fathom out what that life would be. _


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two: A potentially lethal hobby

Balthier absently ran the pad of this right thumb over the fading, but still visible, fork scar on his left hand thoughtfully.

Outside in the prison courtyard he could hear the labourers constructing the scaffold the good citizens of this sleepy northern Archadian town hoped to hang him from later on this very day.

Balthier tipped the wooden chair back on its two hind legs and leaned against the wall, he did not need a mirror to know his nonchalantly confident smirk was in place and he looked the very picture of sophistication.

Right on time the door to his reasonably comfortable cell opened and the plump and rosy cheeked daughter of the chief prison warden bustled in carrying a tray laden with his Last Supper.

' Here yer are sir. Pigeon Pie and gravy just like yer requested.'

'Thank you Hetty, I can tell just from the delicious aroma, that this will be the best pie I have ever eaten,' He winked at the girl, ' Please pass on my compliments to the chef.'

He looked over the dulled silverware and picked up the grey frayed-edged napkin snapping out the worn linen with deliberately theatrical movements as the girl watched him hawkeyed.

'Sir?'

The girl, wearing a white pinafore and a very fetching white bonnet on her head, was wringing her hands in the folds of her thick skirts anxiously.

'Yes Hetty?' He made a point of trying out his best smile on the girl and watched satisfied as she blushed prettily.

'Sir, Da says that if yer just repented an' tol the mayor where you hid all his Gil the mayor would be merciful an' let yer live.'

'Merciful indeed?' Balthier murmured picking up the decidedly less than silver silverware and cutting through the crumbling puff-pastry into the pie. Yes, this really was a rather good pie.

' And would the good Mayor let me go, do you suppose, or merely send me on to Archades and the care of the Judges?'

'Sir! Sir, they are to hang yer!'

Balthier looked up from the neat motions of his knife and fork as he dug into his pie. He would remember this little provincial town for future reference any time he had a craving for real, Archadian, cooking.

' Yes, I know.'

' But sir, you'll die.'

Hetty gave up twisting her skirts about and rushed over to his side, her hands fluttering in the air next to his shoulder, but not quite touching.

Balthier put his silverware down, her concern was really very touching but he'd really like to get on with his meal.

Dabbing his lips with the napkin lightly, not impressed with the state of the cloth, and regretting the loss of his handkerchief during his arrest, Balthier reached over and captured one of Hetty's chubby hands in both of his.

' My dear Hetty, I am a Pirate, what else can the good people of your lovely town do but hang me by the neck 'til dead?'

Hetty was staring at him with huge, slightly vacant eyes, her free hand clapped over his right hand effectively trapping his hands.

'Sir.' Hetty leaned down and whispered rather loudly and in elaborately conspiratorial aside, in his ear. ' Sir, I 'ave seen that Viera, she's hidin' in the woods.'

Balthier contrived to look both shocked and concerned. ' Hetty, are you sure?'

Hetty nodded, still leaning in close to him and whispering despite the fact that there was nobody about to hear them.

'Yes sir, I'm sure. Sir, might she come and rescue you?'

Hetty's eyes were alight with hope that his worthless pirate hide might be saved from the long drop. Balthier forced himself to remain the very embodiment of serious concern.

' I sincerely hope not, for she will likely share my sad fate if she does.'

Although his greatest preoccupation was his rapidly cooling dinner Balthier prided himself on having a keen understanding of the dramatic. He affected a look of penitent concern upon his brow and fixed his blank gaze upon the barred narrow window of his cell.

'If only there was some way of getting a final message to my dear partner,' he cast a quick sideways glance Hetty's way and was pleased to see she was hanging on his every word.

' It is quite my fault that she has become so embroiled in this life, many a time she begged me to give up this sinful vocation and seek forgiveness from the gods. Ah, had I but listened to her then.'

He shook his head and reached for the statue of the god of redemption, Ankfer, that so many of these provincial villagers seemed to go in for.

He brought the ugly brass figurine across the table to his chest and closed his eyes in what he hoped looked to Hetty to be a heartfelt act of contrition.

' If I could just get one last message to her I would tell her to leave me and go on and lead a good and honest life, I will die a happy man knowing she is safe and well.'

'Oh, sir!'

Balthier blinked as the big-boned girl threw her arms around him and almost knocked the untreated wooden trestle table he was eating from over, taking his dinner with it.

Hetty sobbed noisily and Balthier had the unpleasant fear that she was using his fine Rozzarian cotton adorned shoulder to wipe her nose on.

All the while his dinner was getting stone cold.

' Sir, sir, let me tell her!'

Balthier carefully detached the girl from himself and wiped fastidiously at his shoulder. These Provincials had no manners whatsoever.

' Hetty I could never ask you to do such a thing for a scoundrel like myself. No, your kindness has already been quite above and beyond that which a reprehensible heathen like myself has any right to expect.'

He could tell he had already well exceeded the limits of the poor girl's understanding and sighed.

He really needed to wrap this up before his dinner became as frozen and the Paramina rift. The gravy, he noticed distastefully, had already grown a skin.

' Perhaps, if you truly wish to help me save my dear friend, you could take a note for me, a final farewell if you will, out to the Glen of Fatulla? I know my friend will find it there and this way you will not have to debase yourself by conferring with a wanted felon.'

Hetty was nodding her head vigorously, ' I'll do it sir, for you.'

She blushed mightily and Balthier almost felt guilty for this blatant manipulation.

But really, when considered rationally, it was a harmless thing. The girl had enjoyed his attentions these last few days and she gained a little fun and adventure in an otherwise humdrum existence.

Reviewed from a particular perspective one could even argue that he was doing the girl a favour, teaching her a valuable life lesson regarding the suspect attentions of men in prison cells facing an appointment to be fitted for the final necktie.

Having waylaid any sense of guilt, not that it had been very great to begin with, Balthier scraped his chair back and pulled off his thigh high black boot with the fancy silver buckles that, to these backwards god-fearing peasants, was the height of big-city sophistication.

He pulled the pre-written note from the toe of his boot (Fran would just have to cope with any lingering odours, though he always tried to keep a fresh mint leaf in his boots just for that purpose) and proffered the note to the girl who didn't seem to mind at all that the paper was still warm and crumpled from over a day in his boot.

'I'll go soon as church is over sir.'

'Thank you Hetty. You are too good to me.'

_Now go away and let me eat my bloody dinner. _

The young girl left him in peace rushing off with a sense of purpose and bright eyed from the prospect of doing something just a little bit naughty. Bless her cotton socks.

Balthier finished his meal, not as cold as he thought and Gods knew he'd had worse in any case, before reclining on the narrow bunk attached to the wall of the cell and cat-napping for most of the afternoon.

Occasionally the sound of men sawing wood and hammering boards interrupted his meditative day dreaming as outside the local woodsmen and farmers argued over how to make a good gibbet.

Sometime close to his hour of destiny he heard the first murmur of displaced air that let him know a light airship, currently clocked from the eyes of the unsuspecting local citizenry, was being manoeuvred into position over the stone and wood construct of this tiny little prison.

Fran was developing a fine flair for dramatic timing evidently; either that or she was hoping to dissuade him from doing this again by timing this rescue so close to the line.

If it was the latter she was in for a disappointment.

Balthier had a new lead entry for his own mental tally of _best last suppers ever eaten_. But there were still many other prisons in Ivalice whose cuisine he had yet to sample.

He had decided quite by chance to go to the window to look down upon the courtyard and wave cheerfully to the town's mayor, the man having come out to oversee the final touches to his scaffold.

It was just as well, Balthier was to remark later, that he had decided to indulge his pettiness by baiting the mayor, as the Strahl's anchor came crashing through the conical roof of the tower cell he was in.

Had he still be lazing in the bunk or resting by the tiny table, he likely would have suffered some form of injury as the anchor smacked down onto the stone, gouging the floor.

Balthier looked up through the huge hole the anchor had made in the roof, coughing as the clouds of sifting dust, brick mortar and bits of thatch rained down into his little cell.

The Strahl's pale orange underbelly obscured the sky as he craned his neck to look straight up.

Clearly, Balthier reasoned ironically, as he stepped up onto the anchor and held onto the chain, the links as thick as his forearm, Fran was annoyed with him.

The hole formed by the anchor was not quite as large as he had first thought, and for once Balthier was glad of his rather willowy frame as he contorted his body, while balanced precariously on the anchor, to fit through the hole as the anchor was winched upwards into the Strahl's hold.

The local prison warders and gathered citizenry, come out in force to wash away the guilt-laden after taste of church with a nice public hanging, could do nothing but stare upwards as the Strahl floated majestically above their tiny little hamlet and their condemned man waved to them as he disappeared inside the hold.

' Master Balthier, how was it?'

Nono was the first member of the crew (all two of them) to greet him as he jumped from the anchor onto the cargo holds floor and began swiping brick dust and bits of straw used in the thatching of the roof from his person.

'Good; an eight for the food, a seven for the company and a six for the accommodation. And I am being generous there because one cannot expect these provincial gaols to have the same amenities as the larger cities.'

Balthier gave his pronouncement on the Itgar village prison as he strolled towards the cockpit, Nono fluttering along in his wake.

Fran did not turn towards him as she sat in his usual seat and he slipped into her usual place in the navigator's chair.

The twitching of her left ear was the only indication that she was annoyed and Balthier sighed.

' Alright.'

He conceded watching that elegantly twitching ear as Fran pointedly ignored him and pushed the Strahl westwards away from the tiny hamlet of Itgar, which from this day on would always remember the name of the sky pirate _Balthier_.

' I promise not to get myself arrested for the sole purpose of sampling the local prison cooking in the foreseeable future.'

Fran cut him a dark sideways look, ' You will not voluntarily have yourself arrested for any purpose from now on. It is foolhardy.'

'Agreeing to a promise like that is foolhardy, Fran.' He countered propping his booted feet up on the edge of the Strahl's control panel and patting his stomach contentedly.

Fan quirked an eyebrow; he smirked seeing that she was not so much annoyed as curious.

He decided to satisfy that ever-insatiable curiosity of hers, albeit with a carefully constructed lie.

He had decided it would be for the best to convince Fran of his eccentricities and hope that she did not probe deeper for the true reason for their coming to the Glen of Fatulla.

' I am prepared to concede that while a comprehensive list of where one can find the best service and dining, and in which prisons, has merit for our fellow felons, it_ is_ a time consuming and dangerous hobby.'

'However,' he continued before Fran could misconstrue this as a promise never to pursue his unusual hobby again.

' There may come a time when we both might need to voluntarily surrender to some country or others hospitality for our own safety. Prison is one of the safest places a pirate can be when head hunters come a calling.'

Fran sighed, ' We have yet to attract the attention of head hunters, Balthier. You are too reckless.'

'Not reckless, Fran, it is merely forward planning. I do not want you to think me an oath breaker should I make a promise I can't keep.' He teased.

Fran shook her head, 'Next time Pirate I shall let you find your own means of escaping the noose.'

Balthier, still a little drowsy from his interrupted nap (long periods of inactivity such as one experiences in prison making him rather lethargic) chuckled and settled down in the navigator's chair for a light doze.

' At least we still have all of the mayors Gil, Fran.' He pointed out eyes closing.

He heard Fran sniff, which was as close to an exclamation of amused irritation as his partner would allow herself; Balthier fell asleep because he did not trust himself not to give himself away through word and deed should he remain conscious.

He feared Fran's reaction should he tell her the truth, therefore he would fall back on old habits and lie, dissemble and prevaricate for as long as he could.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three: How to be corrupt in a good way

'Bunansa!'

_Ffamran__ slowly raised his eyes to meet the no doubt furious regard of Judge Magister __Ghis_

' Sir?'

_Ffamran__ supposed that even by his less than stellar example, his rise to attention fell somewhere short of exemplary. _

_Ghis__ stood before him peering at him with some obscure expression on his face, the Magister having removed his helmet in deference to being inside the Judiciary building and perhaps in acknowledgment of the blistering summer heat. _

'What can you tell me of this, _Judge_ Bunansa?'

_There was a certain irony in the twist of __Ghis__' fleshy lips as he snapped a sheaf of papers in front of __Ffamran's__ nose. The Magister __Ffamran__ found himself beholden to enjoyed using his rank against him, the man being just perceptive enough to have picked up on __Ffamran's__ blatant loathing of all things Judicial. _

' I don't know sir.' _Ffamran__ responded without visible reaction to having the older man leaning into him so that his vaguely amphibious face filled his vision. _

'Perhaps if you were to tell me as to what those papers related too, I might be better able to comment?'

' Do you mock me Bunansa?'

'No sir.' _I wouldn't waste the breath, you grandiose, pompous arse. _

_Ghis__ shoved the sheaf of papers into __Ffamran's__ hands__, '_Acquisitions forms, Bunansa, allegedly signed by myself.'

_Ah. _' Indeed sir? Is there some problem?'

_Ffamran__ found himself eyeball to eyeball with the self-important Judge. However, despite being a bare fraction of the other man's age and universally derided by the other Judges, hoplites and varied cannon fodder of the Imperial army for being both silver-spoon aristocracy and barely old enough (so they all enjoyed telling him) to hold a sword, he remained unmoved. _

_Last night his father had taken it upon himself to wake __Ffamran__ from his slumber and espouse at great length on the dangers of worshipping false idols while simultaneously undertaking a brisk conversation on some incomprehensible scientific hypothesis with his ever-present imaginary friend. _

_Compared to that there was very little Judge Magister __Ghis__ and his cronies could do to intimidate __Ffamran_

' Bunansa have you heard a word I have just said?'

_No you bloody moron, why would I waste time listening to you? _

' Yes, sir. You are worried that somebody in your division is abusing state resources, sir.'

' Abusing state resources? Is that your interpretation of these acquisitions forgeries Bunansa?'

_Ghis__ liked to think he was clever. This made him dangerous because there was nothing worse than a stupid man who concocted the notion that he had some slyness to him. _

'There is some other interpretation, your honour?' _Ffamran__ asked blandly. _

_He knew that __Ghis__ knew he was the one busily forging the man's signature on any number of ridiculous acquisition requests, everything from fifty crates of __Bhujerban __Madhu__ to ninety-seven pink balloons, for home inflation. _

_Ffamran__ also knew that __Ghis__, a scion of a relatively modest aristocratic house, would not dare report him for this huge breach in professional conduct. _

_House __Bunansa__ could buy and sell all the holdings __Ghis__' family possessed five times over before breakfast, after all. _

_In __Archades__ information and old Gil made the world go round. House __Bunansa__ had both and while __Ffamran__ longed with every breath to escape name and heritage he was not above using both to enable that escape. _

' I am putting you in charge of finding the culprit, Bunansa, I trust you will be able to manage the task?'

_Ffamran__ hid his smile as he nodded with vacant eyed sincerity, _' You can depend on me, sir.'

_Ghis__ sneered but refrained from further comment, twisting on his heels and clanking off down the corridor of the Judiciary building. _

_Ffamran__ returned to his stock taking exercise, cheerfully purloining and secreting stationary within the hollows of his armour as he did so. Every little helped. _

_Ghis__ was hoping that __Ffamran__ would hoist himself upon his own petard by making him responsible for finding the acquisitions forger, primarily because __Ffamran__ was the guilty party and would either have to hand himself over to disciplinary action or find a convenient scapegoat. _

_In either event __Ghis__ no doubt thought that he would have some form of leverage to use against __Ffamran__, and by extension his father, Cid's star being most definitely in the ascendant right now. _

_What __Ghis__ could not know, and the reason his plotting was doomed to failure, was that __Ffamran__ intended to be long gone from __Archades__ before anyone could hold him to account for his forgery. _

_Ffamran__ glanced from the brass and steel clock on the department wall and back at the stacked boxes of munitions and paperclips he was required to inventory, log, and distribute to the various provisions stores. _

_Without a moment's hesitation and whistling under his breath the whole time __Ffamran__ removed the artillery shells from their packaging and the paperclips from their boxes and exchanged the contents. _

_Even tiny acts of defiance while he waited for his moment helped speed the day along. _

_The thought of __Ghis__' face when he discovered that alcoholic beverages and rubber __inflatables__ were not the only things he had allegedly signed for, gave __Ffamran__ an odd feeling of wicked anticipation. _

_What would his Honour say when Judge Magister __Zaagabaath__ or that zealot turn-coat __Gabranth__ questioned him in regards to the peculiarities in his bureau's finances? _

_Deciding that he had perpetrated enough low level anarchy for one day, __Ffamran__ sauntered out of the Judiciary building (after having first divested himself of the hated armour and left it more or less safely secured in his locker). _

_It would not be long now, __Ffamran__ thought as he watched an arrowhead of __Phon__ Geese cut through the flawless late spring sky. _

_Soon he would either be leisurely swinging from a noose or free as those birds. _


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four: War cometh and Fran's patience is strained

' It is poor justification.'

Balthier looked up from his tankard over the table to Fran.

' Well yes, but it's also an allegation neither Dalmasca or Nabradia can argue successfully against. They cannot claim that if the threat of invasion became reality they would not, in fact, take Rozzarian aid against the Empire.'

Fran shook her hair behind her and sipped her own drink. ' It is a wonder the Empire goes to the trouble of such diplomatic farce, they hold superiority of arms.'

Balthier nodded. 'House Solidor and the Judiciary would prefer to simply invade but they must at least pay lip service to the Senate and contrive to convince the citizens that war is in the public good.'

Fran reached over and snagged a handful of almonds from the bowl on the table between them and crunched one with unintentional sensuality between her teeth. Balthier watched captivated.

' Archadia's system of governance has oft times puzzled me.' Fran conceded after a few moments meditative crunching.

' Why so?' Balthier, a product of that system, shook himself out of his reverie on Fran's barely seen and perfect white teeth.

' House Solidor holds supreme power, yet the populace look to the senate for their governance. Why does the Emperor present the senate as a front, can he not simply rule alone?'

Balthier grinned, ' Ahh, but that would make our beloved Gramis an autocrat and a tyrant and Archadia prides itself on being the greatest democracy Ivalice has ever known.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, ' There has been no popular election to the senate in thirty years, even the promotion of a member of the judiciary to the position of Magister is made by personal appointment of the Emperor.'

Balthier smirked humourlessly, ' And your point Fran?'

Fran sighed, 'The ways of Humes amaze me. Why must you wrap yourselves in artifice and fabrication to justify your will? If something is worth doing it is either justified or it is not.'

Balthier reached out and snatched up a handful of almonds, shaking the nuts in his hands as he laughed.

' Ah, but it is more fun this way. A life lived in pursuance of nothing but the unadorned truth is no life at all.'

'Fun, Balthier?'

Fran cocked her head to the side and gave him that cool, almost haughty look that managed to suggest she was playing with him in some way and yet without any suggestion of malice.

'You consider a war amusing?'

Balthier drained his tankard and raised his hand for bar service; one of the good things about the whole Nylous debacle was that here in Balfonheim he could ride on the wave of goodwill his actions had granted him from the denizens of this now free smugglers port.

' There is a certain element of cerebral farce to the whole affair, but in truth, no, war doesn't hold much amusement for me.'

The cheerful and ubiquitously buxom bar maid all but bounced over and refilled both his and Fran's drinks.

' It is much as you predicted, is it not?' Fran mused. ' War is in the very air, even here I hear its whispers.'

' You shall hear war on the lips of almost every man in port Fran. That and the Gil they shall make from profiteering.'

Balthier leaned back in his chair and languidly gestured towards the assorted seaman, pirates and mercenaries who drank their fill around them in the Whitecap.

Fran nodded, 'Yes, to fight a war for ones country, for hearth and heath I can understand, though to Viera such actions are folly, but to fight a war that is not your own for such ephemeral reward as profit?'

Fran shook her head and tapped her clawed fingers against the sticky table top. Balthier watched the complex expression that flickered across her brow, as fast as reflected sunlight on the still surface of a pond; confusion.

'Sometimes I think that I shall never understand the ways of Humes.'

Balthier tipped his head back to study the water stained ceiling above their heads.

' I wonder why you should wish too.'

' And you Balthier, what are we to do when war comes, reside here in Balfonheim for the duration?'

The musical cadence of her words and Fran's unusual inflection did not hide the inquiring lilt to her mild question.

Balthier, who spent an inordinate amount of his time puzzling out each exotic shade of her every utterance for hidden meaning and any hint of encroaching boredom with his company, recognised the tone.

Fran knew he was up to something and was warning him her patience with him was beginning to wane, which was not the same as saying she had lost patience as yet; he still had a little time.

' I was thinking we should make for Safrosa Bay. There is a man there, an old friend, I wish to see with regards a possible business venture.'

Balthier remained deliberately not looking to Fran, instead letting his eyes rove over the ceiling, the well-stocked bar, the infant Bangaa picking pockets in the corner.

He looked to anything and everything but Fran as he worked to maintain a mien of nonchalant disinterest in his own words.

Fran, he had discovered, enjoyed a good mystery. If he simply told her what he had planned she might either object to the plan, which would not be to his liking, or worse, she might lose interest and leave.

More than anything else in his life at this juncture in time, Balthier did not want Fran to leave him.

So, he would play out the suspense, balancing on the knife edge between intriguing and annoying Fran in the hopes that he could hold her attention.

'What form of business venture?' Fran's cool voice inquired intently.

' Don't worry Fran, it is really terribly dull; barely even illegal.' He smirked at her, finally meeting her eyes for long enough that she could study him.

Sometimes when she fixed him with those shuttered, enigmatic, Inhume eyes of hers, he thought that she must know him completely, every lie and every unsubstantiated boast.

But then, he reassured himself, she was still here wasn't she? Had she known him as completely as all that she would have left months ago.

' It is simply a matter of ascertaining a few facts for a friend of mine currently residing in the Mosphoran Highwaste and conveying that information to him.'

Which was, when looked at in a purely logistical sense, the truth.

It was all about plausible deniability, the fact that in the purely literal sense he had not lied to her; that and the drama of the thing.

Fran gave him a long hard look, her steady gaze unblinking. 'I see.'

Balthier had the uncomfortable feeling that she really did at that and hastily turned his attention to his half finished ale.

Now for the hard part, ' Yes, there is just one small proviso to this job.'

Fran raised one eyebrow but remained otherwise unmoved. 'Oh?'

' Yes, the _friend _I am planning on meeting associates are a rather reclusive lot.' Balthier said briskly, talking over the silent exclamation of suspicion as Fran's other brow rose articulately.

Fran, to her immense credit, simply asked, ' Reclusive?'

Balthier examined a loose thread on his sleeve absently and in his mildest voice inquired of his partner.

'Tell me Fran, have you ever heard of the Army of Liberation?'

Fran, who had been in the process of sipping from her beverage, started to choke.

This time, as he quickly offered her his handkerchief (an identical replacement of the one lost in Itgar) Balthier had no trouble interpreting the look of total incredulity resting upon Fran's ordinarily serene features.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five: Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the maddest of them all?

A/N: the motivation for most of this story has been the question how did Ffamran become Balthier, what was the catalyst that forced him to up sticks and run from his home? How much of the Balthier we all know is real and how much is deliberate artifice - what goes on in the head of a man who introduces himself as a conceit of popular fiction? This story is my attempt to answer those questions.

* * *

_Ffamran__ studied his reflection in the mirror in his bedroom intently. _

_Behind him, covering his bedspread in a loose skein, were dozens of crumpled pieces of paper, an assortment of quills and stylus and a set square and ruler and other mathematical drawing aids. _

_Under the bed were twenty three medium sized sacks each containing somewhere in the region of one thousand to five thousand Gil. _

_It had taken him three weeks of careful, slow, deliberate embezzlement to first forge __Ghis__' signature on the payment release forms and then make his 'collections' of the Gil in small consignments that would not be noticed or viewed as suspicious, from the department's treasury. _

_It had been, once he plucked up the nerve to enact the plan, disgustingly easy. _

_Unfortunately now that he had successfully robbed the Judiciary department of a respectably shocking amount of Gil he had no idea what he planned to do with it._

_Thus he was staring fixedly into his mirror waiting for his reflection to inform him of the next stage in their plan._

_With the movements of one possessed __Ffamran__ picked up a wooden backed hair brush and started to backcomb the fringe of short, wiry, vaguely curling, mousey hair that habitually fell over his forehead. _

_He brushed that hair straight up, away from his forehead, and observed the difference in his appearance. _

_Ffamran__ watched as his reflection, freshly coiffed to his liking, affected a rather knowing and confident smirk upon his lips. _

' Hello Ffamran, been busy have we?'_ His reflection purred. _

' What are we to do with the Gil?'

_In contrast to the rich, self confident purring of his alter-ego, __Ffamran__ winced to hear his own flat, defeated tones. _

'Tsk-tsk.' _His reflection shook his head mockingly, _' Hasty aren't we?'

'I cannot just sit around with over a hundred thousand Gil under the mattress!'

'Why not?' _His reflection inquired, silencing __Ffamran_

' It seems to me you could use a good night's sleep.' _His reflection added slyly._

'Chance would be a fine thing in this household.' _Ffamran__ retorted, growing irritated with the nonchalant and vacuous tone his reflection was taking with him. _

_His reflection winced and something vaguely sympathetic flittered through his shuttered brown eyes._

'Quite the sorry state, aren't we?'

_Ffamran__ frowned, _' What do you mean by that?' _He asked guardedly. _

_His reflection had something of a sharp, dark wit that __Ffamran__ had come to be both wary of and impressed with. _

_His reflection quirked an eyebrow expressively, _' What do I mean? I don't mean anything because I do not exist.'

_Ffamran__ opened his mouth to demand a better explanation than that and his reflection, who currently lacked a name for itself, beat him to it; as was so often the case._

' You do realise, of course, that you are talking to yourself? It is symptomatic of how sundered you have become that you no longer know your own mind. We are almost as bad as the old man.'

_Ffamran__ nodded, letting out a long held breath that his reflected self shared. _' I do not think Father's madness is quite the same.'

'No.' _He and his reflection had a moment of shared pain as they thought upon the man whose madness was directly responsible for __Ffamran's__ own increasingly fragmentary sense of self. _

_It was his own fault, __Ffamran__ knew, for having devoted himself to being everything Cid could want from a son and having fallen, evidently, so far off the mark that his Father had taken to talking to himself as a replacement. _

_Briefly he wondered if Cid had spent hours pondering these very questions while staring at a stranger in a mirror who shared his face. _

'Don't worry,' _His reflection cooed soothingly with __Ffamran's__ own voice but without __Ffamran's__ ever encroaching despair. _

_'_Just do everything I tell you Ffamran and soon you and I will be free.'

_Ffamran__ stared into the mirror almost fearfully and slowly watched that other self, the person who was not __Ffamran __Mid __Bunansa__ in anyway shape or form except in appearance fade away. _

_Ffamran__ was left staring into his own, dazed, blinkered dark eyes which sought to be blind to the destruction of everything he held dear, he saw his own tired features contort into a mask of anguish. _

_He slammed his fist into the mirror and watched the glass splinter into shards with something like satisfaction, at least now it gave an accurate reflection of his state of being. _

_Vaguely __Ffamran__ became aware of the glass slivers embedded in his knuckles and frowned. _

_It was, he thought bitterly, damned unfair that Cid could be mad and cheerful with it and __Ffamran__ himself (who was clearly equally deranged even by __Bunansa__ standards) was so interminably miserable. _

_His reflection was waiting for him in the mirror when he stumbled into the bathroom in search of another cure potion. _

' Oh, very nice, Ffamran.'

_His reflection sneered, lips curled up over perfect white teeth and eyes simmering with superiority. _

' That's just what we need, another Bunansa lunatic.'

_Ffamran__ ignored his reflection and worked on easing the splinters of glass from his hand before imbibing the potion, it would not do to have the flesh heal over the glass. _

'He won't care you know.'

_His other self drawled, the same voice that lurked in the back of his mind and whispered constantly to __Ffamran__ of escape and a new beginning, the chance to stop being __Ffamran__ and try his luck with a different life._

'It's far too late now. Nothing you do will ever interest him again. You are obsolete Ffamran, forgotten. You have served your purpose and he needs you no more.'

_The voice, smooth as silk and honey seeped into his soul and congealed in his heart, clogging his arteries with the hated truth, spoken with such distain that it seemed to __Ffamran__ that his whole existence truly was nothing more than what he feared. _

_Utterly and completely pointless._

_What was left for a son when his father did not love him anymore? _

_Slowly and with unintended pathos that his mirror self appreciated even as __Ffamran__ failed to see the drama of it all, he leaned his head against the glass of the mirror and squeezed his eyes closed. _

'I can leave soon?' _Ffamran__ whispered. _

'Oh, yes, the more you break the stronger I become.' _His other self, the reflection that would usurp him, assured him. _

'And who are you?' _Ffamran__ thought he should at least have a name, this figment of his imagination that would take over when __Ffamran__ could keep going no longer._

_He heard his reflection chuckle, a surprisingly insidious sound. _' Oh, I don't have a name yet, when the time comes we'll know who I shall be.'

_Ffamran__ opened his eyes and from half an inch away he stared into his reflections eye, eyelashes brushing the cool surface of the mirror. _

'When the time comes.'

_He repeated straightening up and spending a few minutes putting his dishevelled self to rights. At least he still looked sane. _

_Without a backwards glance towards the mirror and the shadow self contained within, __Ffamran__ left the bathroom and headed down the wide staircase towards another agonising and surreal supper with his father and his father's delusion._

_He amused himself idly with the notion of introducing reflected __Ffamran__ to his father's imaginary friend. Perhaps if his father knew __Ffamran__ had dutifully followed him into complete insanity the man might actually deign to meet __his son's__ eyes once in a while? _

'Hardly.' _His usurper sneered in the back of his mind._

'You waste your time even hoping. Face it, Ffamran, you are weak and you are useless and, really, you are so much better off letting me take over. I dare say I shall make a better job of your life than you ever could.'

_Ffamran__ might have argued, except then he would be arguing with himself and there were still some lines he would not cross; at least publicly. _


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Six: An Invitation and the return of old friends

' I am ill at ease with your intentions Balthier, this place has the feel of danger, it is not safe, especially when meeting known terrorists.'

Fran murmured as they walked side by side along the bamboo lined board walk of the main thoroughfare of Safrosa Bay, a tiny speck of land in the deeps of the Naldoa Ocean, far to the south of Balfonheim.

' I am not _intending_ anything Fran, we are merely meeting an old acquaintance of mine for a drink, no terrorists involved.'

The balmy sea breeze carried the scent of sweat, fruity alcoholic beverages and open cooking fires.

' You do not lie well, Balthier, at least not to me. You have said you have business with the Army of Liberation, those men are dangerous.'

Balthier sighed, the humidity was oppressive and his white shirt was sticking unbecomingly to his arms and shoulders, at least he had had the sense to forego a vest.

' I have never lied to you Fran. Lying is beneath the dignity of a leading man.'

'But evasion, poor evasion at that, is not, it would seem.' She shot back dryly.

' We are here by my …friends… invitation. It is a simple business venture.'

He pointed out as reasonably as he could, even though using the word _friend_ to describe the originator of this invitation offended Balthier greatly.

'Indeed, an invitation in reply to your own enticements to this _friend_ of yours, pirate.' Fran retorted, shaking her long fall of gossamer fine hair back behind her shoulders.

Balthier itched to touch those shimmering locks, but even he had better sense than to breach the near physical barrier Fran had erected around her personal space.

'Jules enjoys the impression of personal power; especially that which he can lord over others, all of this is a necessary evil.' He gestured to their primitive surroundings.

' Jules?'

They had reached the Safrosa Surf Inn and Balthier took a moment to mentally prepare himself while opening the door for Fran in classic gentlemanly fashion. In her own beautiful style she ignored his efforts completely.

' Jules Enkara, Archades greatest spy.'

Balthier explained grudgingly, even saying the name left a sour after taste in his mouth.

Fran cast a curious eye his way as Balthier immediately spotted the dishevelled, poorly dressed dark haired man managing to merge into the bamboo beams and palm fronds décor of the Inn perfectly.

If you didn't know to look for him, you would never see him, thus he was the perfect spy.

Balthier strode forward confidently towards Jules, enjoying the fact that in doing so, Fran sauntering at his back, he drew the attention of the entire Inn towards the Street Ear. Even Jules' natural camouflage could not stand up to that.

It was also gratifying that Jules' eyes widened fractionally when confronted with Fran, though Balthier could not blame the man for that.

'Jules, it has been awhile, has it not?' Balthier greeted the man jovially resting his hands on his hips.

Jules recovered his composure instantly and doffed an imaginary hat in a wry bow,

' Master Ffamran, good o' you to come.'

Beside him Balthier was aware of Fran's slight twitch at the use of his birth name. Damn Jules.

' _Balthier_.' He bit out. 'You must be mistaking me with someone else.' He added unsmilingly towards Jules.

' You are a long way from the alleys Jules.' He hoped to remind the man of who held the real power here.

' A man in my business needs to spread 'is wings now an' again.'

Jules kept his keen eyes on Fran a few moments, but her placid regard did not waver and soon the Street Ear lost interest in her altogether.

' I 'erd you been busy Ff – _Balthier. _Made something o' a name for yourself in pirating circles of late.'

'I'm sure I have no idea to what you refer.'

Balthier said blandly, even as a boy straight out of Tsenoble he had known better than to admit anything to a Street Ear, especially to confirm anything illegal.

' Shall we cut to the chase, Jules? I and my partner are rather busy of late.'

' A little birdy tol' me you recently been to Itgar?'

Balthier smiled tightly as with nonchalant disregard he gestured the barman over and ordered a pint for himself and a mint liqueur for Fran (he had asked her a few weeks ago for a drinks preference and been rather surprised by the answer). He deliberately did not ask Jules what he was having.

Despite his appearance to the contrary Jules made a very good living from the peddling of lies, misinformation, and not so innocent conjecture within the wide avenues of the Capital and the broken alleys of Old Archades.

He could buy his own damn drink.

'Well informed as ever, Jules, you are quite correct. Fran and I have recently returned from a little foray to Archadia's northern hemisphere.'

'Ah,' Jules' keen dark eyes winked in the dim crystallight of the Inn, 'and did you by chance take a stroll through the woods round those parts? Lovely scenery up north, so I 'erd.'

Balthier brushed a speck of lint from his sleeve and picked the damp cloth from his arms, disinterested.

' It is not particularly to my liking.' He replied superciliously. 'Too many quarries and mine shafts ruin the natural beauty of the environment, I have found.'

Balthier looked up from his cuffs to see Jules' eyes flash with avaricious triumph. Balthier bit his lip on a sneer.

' Really? Don't s'pose you'd tell an old pal how many quarries and mine shafts you 'appened to come across on your trip, eh?'

Balthier shrugged blithely, ' Fran?'

This was the moment of truth. Balthier could only hope that little Hetty had actually passed on his secret missive to Fran and that she in turn had read it and followed through on the instructions.

Fran raised one eyebrow clearly rather amused by the clandestine and circuitous machinations he and Jules went through in their conversation.

' Balthier?'

Was all Fran would say. He could not clearly read her expression. Was she dragging this out for the drama, or because she had no intention of playing along?

' Fran, how many exploratory digs do you think we came across in the Glen of Fatulla?'

He kept his voice mild even though anxiety was creeping into his thoughts. Please Fran, play along and I'll explain everything once we're alone.

'A half dozen, perhaps.' She replied expressionlessly.

'An' did you 'appen to see what they was diggin' out o' the ground?' Jules enquired eagerly.

' I dare say I was not interested enough to enquire.'

Balthier replied airily, examining his nails thoughtfully, refusing to allow the breath to rush free of his lips in relief. Thank you Fran, he thought emphatically towards her hoping she could hear him with her uncanny senses.

' And you Fran?' He added still keeping his tone feather light.

Fran shifted her weight from one foot to the other and Balthier tried to interpret this gesture in terms of her growing annoyance with his games.

Alas, though she had stayed with him a grand total of ten months and twenty seven days thus far, so much about her remained a mystery.

She was to him alike an ancient, beautifully written, book in a language he did not know and had no real means of translating.

But he would understand her, he had promised himself this. Understanding her, Balthier was certain, was the first step towards keeping her with him.

'The Empire has interest in Magicite Ore, so it would appear.' Fran said after a pause in which time she met his eyes curiously.

He understood her silent question for he had expressly asked her in his note to investigate the illegal Magicite mines allegedly being cleaved from the soil in the Glen of Fatulla with the covert permission of Itgar's esteemed mayor.

Fran, who was a creature of integrity and sublime honesty, could not understand the need for such backhanded subterfuge. Balthier lived in fear of the day her curiosity with his duplicitous nature turned to contempt and she chose to leave him.

Jules met Balthier's eyes and nodded swiftly, snapping his attention to the matters at hand. 'Well, well. Isn't that somethin'?'

' If one is interested in geology, I suppose.' Balthier said dismissively.

' I, myself, have more of an interest in demography. Particularly the movements of certain groups of Archadians into certain, shall we say, contested territories?'

Jules nodded his head conspiratorially, ' You are not the first t'be askin' me 'bout that; seems that a lot of Archadia's armoured finest 'ave taken to 'olidaying in the Mosphoran Highwaste of late.'

Balthier allowed himself to meet Fran's questioning gaze for a moment, ' How odd.' He said faintly.

Balthier absentmindedly gulped his pint, mind whirling. The information Jules had just given him was immeasurably valuable, but hardly comprehensive.

' I have friends who frequent the Highwaste, I hope their favourite repasts are not invaded by these Imperials, a great many soldiers in a small area can cause all manner of nuisance.'

' No doubt, Master Balthier.' Jules said turning back to his barely touched beer, the meeting affectively over.

Grudgingly Balthier slipped the piece of pearlescent, glowing magicite he had asked Fran to obtain for him while he kept the people of Itgar entertained with his crimes, into Jules' waiting hand.

' It's funny,' Jules said airily as he pocketed the rough hewn stone, ' I been 'earing some strange rumours about a certain Judge making visits to the Nabreus plains, without goin' through the proper diplomatic channels.'

Balthier tapped his fingers on the bar top, ' Anyone I might know?' He asked coolly.

'Couldn't say Master Balthier,' Jules continued, 'the man's of somewhat swarthy looks and hails from close to these here parts, as it happens.'

Balthier repressed the instant twitch as he realised which Judge Jules referred to; Zecht, a man born to the southern Naldoa island colonies of Archadia, but not one who Balthier had pegged as a war mongerer.

Ah well, Judge Magisters were all the same in the end; creatures of war and Empire.

So, Balthier considered dispassionately, Nabradia was to be the preferred battlefield was it? Logical choice, he supposed, the plains of Nabreus were a better place to wage a war than the desert.

For the appearance of the thing Balthier remained by the bar to finish his beer, despite the fact that his business with Jules was now concluded. He was acutely aware of Fran's inquisitive gaze on his back as she demurely sipped her drink.

After a respectable amount of time had passed Balthier nodded to Fran that it was time to go and the two made their way outside.

' You have much explaining to do Balthier.' Fran informed him coolly.

' Yes Fran.' He replied dutifully.

'That man was not one of the Army of Liberation.' Fan pointed out crisply.

' I never said he was. Jules is a street ear, the greatest of that vile breed; he more so than any living soul will know the movements of the Imperial army.'

' And this information is relevant to us, is it?' Fran was beginning to sound somewhat irked.

' To us no, to the Army of Liberation currently camped in the Highwaste, I should say so.'

Fran cocked one hip and rested her hand on that hip, her expression was uncharacteristically emphatic.

'Explain, Balthier.'

Balthier opened his mouth honestly intending to tell Fran the whole truth when a feather tipped arrow suddenly appeared to sprout from the flimsy wood of the hut they had been tarrying against while they talked.

For a moment both of them simply looked from each other to the arrow in confusion.

' Balthier whoreson, I 'ave yer now!'

Balthier whirled about at the same time Fran pivoted smoothly on the balls of her feet to face the direction of the depressingly familiar voice.

'Gods damn it what is _he_ doing here?'

Balthier cursed as Einar, the ridiculously rotund and decidedly violent Seeq he had the misfortune to have long and unpleasant acquaintance with, thundered over the boardwalk towards the two of them, his spiked cudgel raised above his head.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven: Conversations with Convicts

_Ffamran__ clanked lethargically down the white-washed, narrow corridors of the Judiciary buildings lower levels, a dungeon by any other name. _

_In full armour, visor down, helmet suffocating him, __Ffamran__ battled the constant low-level sense of claustrophobia the professional garb of the Judiciary always gave him. _

_Wearing the full plate armour was somewhat akin to the ancient art of torture known as sensory deprivation. Swaddled in chafing metal he could well believe that the rest of the outside world no longer existed and become trapped inside __himself_

_This intense feeling of unease was only heightened by his current assignment. Judge Magister __Gabranth__ was to interrogate prisoner 1919 and needed a witness from the Judiciary to transcribe all that was said. _

_Ffamran's__ lacklustre objection that his __penmenship__ really wasn't very good had fallen on deaf ears. Therefore, as the youngest, least popular and least able Judge, it had fallen to him to stand witness as __Gabranth__ tortured a man._

_Of all the __Magisters, __Gabranth__ scared him the most. The man was clearly deranged and __Ffamran__ was fast developing a decided aversion to the company of lunatics. _

_That he was residing with a maniac and was fast becoming one himself should be enough, it seemed beyond ridiculous that he should also be forced to work alongside madmen as well. _

'You are late boy.' _Gabranth__ did not so much speak but growl from behind his metallic visor._

_As he hovered in the threshold of the interrogation room __Ffamran__ swiftly took in the scene. _

_The prisoner hung from his wrists from a single chain suspended from the ceiling, he was naked save for a pair of cotton briefs and his legs up to mid shin were submerged in a vat of water, electric cables coiled innocuously on the cracked stone floor by the vat._

_So it was electro-therapy today was it? __Ffamran__ felt his lip curl disgustedly behind his visor._

'Apologies; your Honour.'

_Ffamran__ did not look at the emaciated, battered, shaven headed prisoner as he took up position in the corner of the room and sat on the waiting wooden stool, stylus and official transcription pad held poised and waiting. _

_Gabranth__ stood slightly hunched over, his powerful frame and stature enhanced by his horned helmet so that he resembled nothing so much as an enraged bull, pawing at the ground._

' Interrogation of the prisoner formerly known as Hamish Fon Denbak, Captain of the Landis Republican Guard, conducted on the ide of Spring in the fifty-ninth year of our Lord Gramis' reign, by Judge Magister Gabranth, witnessed by Judge Bunansa.'

_The Magister dictated and __Ffamran__ dutifully took down each word, focusing on his handwriting as distraction. _

'Prisoner 1919, you stand accused of attempting to incite insurrection within Archadian territory and planning to commit mortal harm to the personage of the Emperor, how do you plead?'

_The Prisoner did not respond, instead he merely gazed placidly into the reflective surface of __Gabranth's__ visor with eyes as cold as ice shards. _

'Answer, Prisoner!' _Gabranth__ snarled._

' Prisoner is not my name.' _Fon __Denbak__ replied calmly. _' As well you know, brother of Landis.'

_Ffamran__ sucked in his breath and was glad the helmet muffled the sound as with a wordless snarl of anguish, __Gabranth__ grabbed up the live cables attached to the power generator sitting squat across the room and plunged the exposed ends of the cables into the vat of water. The rubber gloves __Gabranth__ wore protected him from the live charge, the prisoner was not so lucky._

_Fon __Denbak__ writhed and convulsed, but made no voluntary sound of surrender. _

_After an intolerably long time by __Ffamran's__ standards __Gabranth__ removed the cables and slowly __Fon__Denbak__ stopped twitching. There was the barely perceptible but sickening hint of burning hair in the air. _

'Landis no longer exists.' _Gabranth__ spat._

' Tis so?' _Fon __Denbak__ croaked back, of all things a smile could be seen playing across his lips._

' And yet the Emperor himself claimed in recent address to the people that Landis lived and thrived as part of the Empire.'

_Ffamran__ hunched his shoulders over the careful transcribing of every defiant and foolhardy utterance as __Gabranth__, not a man known for his conversation skills, turned to his metal gauntleted fists to do his talking for him. _

' Tell me where your men are hiding.' _Gabranth__ breathed heavily as he tired of pounding fists into unresisting flesh. _'And I promise you your death will be quick and merciful.'

_Fon __Denbak__ chuckled wetly around the blood coating his lips and wheezing up from his lungs._

' Aye, mine might be, but what of my men? Will the Empire send you, like a rabid dog, to hunt down your brothers? Aye, but it fits the nature of the beast.'

'Silence! You do not talk to me until I tell you!' _Gabranth__ reared back and grabbed for the electricity cables. _

_Ffamran__ had not realised he'd moved until he found himself staring up at the Hume-behemoth bearing down on him, his back pressed to the power generator he had just de-activated._

' What do you do here, Judge Bunansa?' _Gabranth__ growled, though in slightly more subdued tones._

_Inside his armour __Ffamran__ quaked with terror. What _did_ he think he was doing, interfering with a sanctioned interrogation of a known terrorist, standing between __Vayne __Solidor's__ faithful hound and his bloodlust? Clearly his madness was far more developed than even __Ffamran__ had suspected. _

' My apologies your honour.' _Ffamran__ heard his own voice rise from inside his helmet, cool, collected, confident. _

' It seemed to me, your Honour, that the integrity of the interrogation may be at stake. It clearly states in section nineteen of the Judicial handbook on the proper methodology of interrogation of suspects, sub-section nine that...'

_Gabranth__ snarled impatiently and waved a hand to silence __Ffamran,_'that any use of curative or restorative magicks can affect the veracity of any subsequent confession, rendering any such declaration of guilt null and void. I know the law boy.'

_Ffamran__ felt one eyebrow rise in wry inquiry and a sly smirk quirk up his mouth, all hidden behind his helmet from __Gabranth's__ view, and was distantly grateful that his other, nameless, __self had stepped into the breach and found a way to deal with the enraged and volatile Judge Magister. _

'Of course your Honour.' _He demurred dryly, _' Would you like me to call the guard to return the prisoner to his cell, as the man appears insensate?'

_Gabranth__ turned sharply on his heel to look upon the limp, bleeding form of Hamish __Fon __Denbak__, the man he had very nearly killed. _

'Aye.' _The Judge Magister growled, stalking out of the interrogation room, his cloak flowing behind him. _

_Ffamran__ let out a long, shaking breath, almost slumping against the wall of the tiny, stone hued room. _

_The thick, wet sound of chuckling drew him instantly to attention. _' Sly one, you are.'

_Ffamran__ jolted in surprise as the prisoner, Hamish __Fon __Denbak__ raised his bloodied head to look him straight in the eye. It seemed to __Ffamran__ that Hamish could see right through the polished grate of his visor to the boy beneath._

'I do not speak with condemned men.' _Ffamran__ retorted contradicting his own statement in doing so. _

_Fon __Denbak__ laughed, painfully, _'Don't speak then, little Judge, just listen. The will of the people can never be silenced, Landis will rise again.'

_Ffamran__ sighed, loudly enough to be heard through his helmet, with obvious contempt_.

' Good for Landis then, why do you think I should care?'

_This seemed to give the prisoner pause; he blinked as __Ffamran__ checked to make sure there were no guards present and swiftly moved across the room to the man, while uncorking a potion bottle._

'You would aid me, why?'

_Ffamran__ sighed again as he held the potion bottle to the man's lips as the prisoner sipped awkwardly, impatiently he tapped his metal booted foot against the rough stone floor._

'Because if you die here, it will not be the Magister who is blamed for it, and I have no desire to be a martyr for a country I have never even visited.'

'Tis so?' _The prisoner chuckled again, a surprisingly cheerful man considering his current circumstances. _' You care not that my crusade is against your empire?'

_Ffamran__ deliberately gave the man no warning as he released the chain that held his arms aloft and watched the man fall with graceless thud to the floor, exacting no small amount of satisfaction from the act. _

' I have not the slightest interest in your crusade, and for your information, _I_ do not have an empire. I merely have the misfortune to live in one.'

_Fon __Denbak__ hauled himself up on his hands and knees, free of water vat and chains, his cold eyes hazy with confusion. _

'You wear the armour of a Judge, yet all I hear is contempt for the Empire in your voice, why so?'

_Ffamran__ shook his head in irritation, wondering what had possessed him to speak so to this man. _

_Not knowing why he did so, the very act being the greatest of breaches in protocol, __Ffamran__ removed his helmet and looked down on the man._

' Not by choice do I wear this bloody armour. You may think yourself hard done by that your lands are the property of the Empire, sir, but let me assure you it is a worse fate to be born of Empire. She treats her children very poorly.'

'Gods, but you are barely more than child.' _Hamish __Fon __Denbak__ seemed taken aback. _

_Ffamran__ laughed harshly; put the helmet back on and walked to the door to search out the lowly foot soldiers who acted as guards to take the __Landissian__ rebel back to his cell. _

_There was something oddly liberating in bearing his face to the condemned terrorist and holding his ground against the Magister. _

_Ffamran__ took it as a sign that he would soon be ready to spread his wings and fly far, far away from Empire and all her woes. _


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Eight: Introducing Ba'Gamnan, all good pirates need a headhunter

'Thought you could get away with it, din't yer, Balthier? Ha, I'll 'ave yer guts fer garters!'

Einar grinned horribly as he advanced with supreme confidence on a genuinely surprised Balthier and Fran.

But it was not Balthier's deceased former captain's favourite enforcer that captured his attention; instead it was the four vicious looking Bangaa who slithered up after him.

The lead Bangaa, an overly muscled blue-green skinned monstrosity with blue braids and a truly hideous looking rotating saw for a weapon, fixed Balthier with a surprisingly calculating look.

'Thissss isss the man you want liquidating, Einar?'

' Too right. I want 'is bloody 'ead for a trophy on me wall, Ba'Gamnan.'

The Bangaa, Ba'Gamnan, cocked his head to the side and powered up his saw weapon.

' That we can do.' He nodded and his fellow Bangaa surrounded Balthier and Fran.

' By chance was this in your evening plans, Balthier?'

Fran demanded as she pulled her broadsword from her back sheath, Balthier looked over as he hurriedly loaded his Sirius rifle and shook his head, for the moment unable to find a pithy reply.

Fran sighed, brandished her sword as the first Bangaa, a female, if Balthier could judge at all, closed in on her.

'You are a great deal of trouble, pirate.' Fran scolded him, and then there was precious little time for further conversation.

Fran fought with broadsword and shield and magick, beautiful and deadly. If they had not been in a life and death struggle, Balthier would have liked nothing more than to simply watch her fluidic, poetry in motion, movements.

Regrettably they were in a battle for life and limb against a group of Bangaa who knew what they were doing.

Balthier ducked and rolled as the lead Bangaa, Gabnam or some such, lunged at him with his indecently lethal rotating saw weapon, which cut into the boards of the island hut he had moments earlier been standing in front of, with sickening ease.

Balthier had no trouble envisioning what that weapon could do to his flesh and bone should he make a misstep.

Einar, ignorant, stupid Einar, had seemingly developed some wit in the several months since their last encounter if he had recruited others to do his dirty work.

The Seeq stayed out of the fight, as Balthier pulled a poison dagger from his boot sheave and inserted the blade, up to the hilt, into the unresisting flesh of one of the other male Bangaa's thighs, before kicking the Bangaa's legs out from under him and pivoting to avoid the buzzing whir of a decapitating blow from the lead Bangaa.

While as he infinitely preferred flight to fight, Balthier had not forgotten nearly two solid years of military training from the age of fifteen to his escape at just shy of seventeen that had turned him, albeit briefly, into an Imperial Judge.

Fran, of course, had decades of experience in battle. Getting to his feet he stepped up back to back with Fran who had broadsword raised and her shield bloodied from where she had used it to bludgeon the female Bangaa into submission.

Two bangaa down, still left two standing, as well as Einar, who, sensing their imminent defeat was lumbering forward, caressing his cudgel in meaty hands.

Balthier cast his eyes beyond their encroaching doom for some last minute reprieve.

Islanders stood further down the boardwalk watching the fight but showing absolutely no inclination to offer any form of assistance. Bloody primitives.

The whole of the small settlement of Safrosa Bay was made of narrow bamboo meshed boardwalks, on which huts and stores were built over the swampy water of the ocean inlet.

Watching their three attackers stalk closer and able to feel the vibrations of the lashed together bamboo planks groaning against their weight, an idea occurred to Balthier.

' Fran?' He jerked his head towards the planks beneath their feet.

The slightest of frowns brushed across her features, not confusion but resignation, before she nodded her head reluctantly.

Balthier drew his trusty Sirius, racked another shot in the chamber and fired into the boardwalk exactly at the moment Einar stepped forward.

Without the extra weight of Einar's bulk, the small hole he had blown in the walkway would not have made any difference.

Thanks to good timing, Einar's right leg smashed through the boards up to his thigh and the rotund Seeq crashed forward, face first into the splintering boards.

Fran used the distraction to hurl a twin pronged Thundara bolt at the two bangaa. Balthier shot another hole in the boardwalk causing the planks underneath Einar to snap completely and the Seeq crashed into the fetid water with an almighty splash.

The lead Bangaa attempted to rush them both, leaping over the hole in the walkway and slashing at them with his evil weapon.

Fran dropped into a beautifully executed roll, smoothly missing the whirring blade and uncoiled with liquid grace to deliver a devastating kick to the Bangaa's manlihood that Balthier, and every male of any species present, could feel the echo of.

The Bangaa leader collapsed almost comically slowly to his knees, unfortunately his buzzing saw weapon bit into the boardwalk before him, slicing through the planks and causing the entire walkway to list dangerously.

Balthier fired a warning shot at the last remaining Bangaa's head, gestured for Fran to precede him passed the fallen Bangaa leader and slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of the blue scaled Gamnamigan's (or some such uncivilised name) head, helping him on his way into the swamp to join his employer.

Then he and Fran were both leaping over the holes in the collapsing walkway and running to the tiny strip of solid ground in this gods forsaken island where the natives had built their sorry excuse for an aerodrome.

As they started emergency take off procedures Balthier turned to Fran.

'What did I tell you, Fran, head hunters.' He couldn't keep the slight grin from slipping free.

Fran pointedly ignored him, which Balthier mused, was probably for the best.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Nine: Introducing the Damsel; for there must always be a girl involved

_There were, Ffamran knew, far, far worse fates to befall oneself than this, but right at this juncture of time he struggled to name them._

' Really it was quite atrocious, Ffamran, you should have been there. I don't know what Aisling was thinking.'

_The girl currently clamped to his side, holding his left arm hostage against any attempts to flee, prattled on cheerfully oblivious to his growing exasperation._

'I suppose that sort of attire is all well and good for women in Landis, they are all built like siege engines at any rate, but for Archades, well, she looked like a gigantic orange blimp. Truly I thought she should take off should a stiff breeze stir.'

_At least he wasn't expected to actively participate in this conversation. He had given up trying to insert what he hoped were half-way polite grunts of interest at strategic intervals into her tirade, only to find that his silence simply encouraged her to talk all the more._

_He really didn't understand the female of the species at all._

'So to cut a long story short,'

_Her words registered in his mind and Ffamran's heart leapt in hope. Oh, yes, please._

'I found myself quite put out by it all. There I was trying to be civil and personable and welcome these newcomers into polite society as a good Archadian would, and do you know what? All they wanted to do was harp on about _Landis this_ and _Landis that.'_

_Ffamran squeezed his eyes closed briefly as a tension headache pinged into life behind his left eye. _

_It wasn't that Anna Zaagabaath was all that bad really. Certainly if taken from a purely aesthetic perspective she was quite attractive; a vivacious, loquacious, red head with a very nice figure. _

_He knew that the younger Judges of the Judiciary rather enjoyed it when Judge Magister Zaagabaath's daughter came to visit her father. _

_Had one of them been in the vicinity of the Grand Arcade right now he would gladly pay to have them take her off his hands. _

_'_It's not that I don't sympathise with the Landissians, I'm sure I should not like to have my home invaded, but the simple fact is the war is over, almost five years hence, and they lost. They should move on with their lives and try to make the best of life in the Empire.'

_Ffamran wondered vaguely how she could talk continuously without seeming to pause for breath. Perhaps she possessed gills like a fish, or a specialised respiratory system that stored air for longer than any normal Hume? _

_He also wondered why she insisted on talking to him; wouldn't she prefer an audience that was even marginally interested in what she had to say?_

_It had begun in his final year of Akademy, the year he turned fifteen and was thrust into the Judiciary, Anna Zaagabaath had _much_ preferred to sit by him during seminars and once he became a Judge her visits to the Judiciary increased in both frequency and duration. _

_Sometimes she came solely to see him, neglecting to even inform her Magister father that she was in the building. _

_As far as he could recall he had done not one thing to warrant this special attention and would really rather be without it. _

_Ffamran had been told, by the few friends he had ever made in Akademy, that he could be decidedly anti-social at times. _

_Clearly, Ffamran thought ruefully, he had not been anti-social enough. _

' Ffamran, are you feeling quite well?'

_Anna had miraculously broken off her monologue regarding her inane views on how to better assimilate the disgruntled of Landis to peer up at him with concern in her prettily painted green eyes._

' Today I witnessed a man be tortured, it has given me something of a headache.'

_Ffamran said, because, quite frankly, he had ceased to care. If he could sprout wings and fly away he would do so. _

_Anna frowned at him, _'Ffamran, please, I do hate it when you get into one of your moods.'

_She told him fastidiously ignoring what he had just told her because it did not quite fit with the cosy world view of a privileged child of Empire. _

_Ffamran opened his mouth to say something, anything really, to forestall the torrent of her words that threatened to sweep him away in a flood of triviality but he was, alas, too damn slow. _

_The floodgates had opened once again._

'Father has told me that Lord Bunansa and his eminence Lord Vayne are getting along famously of late. Mother and I thought it would be quite lovely if you and your father could come to dinner with the family next week, do you suppose your father will be available?'

_Ffamran had the highly irrational desire to laugh hysterically, instead he heard himself say in flat tones._

'My father has been working long hours at the laboratory lately and seldom comes home for dinner.'

_He had also taken to talking almost exclusively to thin air all hours of the day and night and going everywhere armed with twin rifles. Ffamran found himself dealing with the uncomfortable mental image of Cid and his psychosis sitting around the dinner table with the Zaagabaath household. _

'Well that is all the more reason for him to get out and spend some time with friends, isn't it?' _Anna chirped, unperturbed. _

'It is hardly good for a man to spend all his time alone with nothing but his work, now is it?'

_Ffamran blinked, distantly in his minds inner eye, he could see his other self shake his head in disgust. _

'No.' _Ffamran agreed distantly, _'It hasn't done him much good of late.'

'And you too, Ffamran.' _Anna said squeezing his left arm, still held in her vice like grip so tight he was losing feeling in his fingers from lack of blood flow. _

'You are always so serious and quiet and dutiful, even in Akademy it was so.'

_Anna sighed as she led him by his captive arm towards one of the benches lining the panorama overlooking the rest of the city below Central and in the distance the imposing tower of the Solidor palace. _

'Now look at you, a Judge and you not yet seventeen, father says you could have a bright future in the Judiciary.'

_Ffamran sat and gazed sightlessly out at the blue sky and the wispy white clouds that patterned that azure expanse, so very, very far away from where he sat._

_Anna remained silent as they both watched a shadow pass overhead as a private light airship coasted down through the clouds towards the Aerodrome in Trant._

'I do know, Ffamran.' _Anna's voice was uncharacteristically soft. She looked at him with oddly earnest eyes._

'My own father thinks I am just a silly, fluff headed girl, and perhaps I am. It is the expected manner for ladies of my station, but I am not blind. I know you had your heart set on studying aeronautics in Bhujerba. I know it was your father who forbade it.'

'A son's duty is to the will of his father.' _Ffamran said even as the words choked him. _

'But you are so unhappy.'

_Anna told him, in case he had somehow failed to grasp his current emotional state of being in all the excitement of being forced to live a life he detested with every fibre of his being. _

'And so?'

_Ffamran felt his lip curl in a sneer that was more his reflection than himself, though daily the divide between them blurred. _

_'_It is the way of the Archadian Gentry, the children are the tools of their fathers and their mothers and in turn they mould their own children to their whims.'

'Ffamran.'

_Anna sounded scandalized, so much so that she let go of his left arm and shifted slightly away from him on the bench. _

'It is all quite beautiful in its twisted intricacy. One generation of Archadians corrupt the next and so on until we reach the point where we must invade other countries to spread the misery around. Ah, yes, truly we are lucky, lucky people to have been born Archadian.'

_Ffamran laughed harshly, his eyes hot but tearless. Ffamran, though he knew not why, had never shed a tear in all his life. _

'Ffamran, I do not like it when you get like this. When you talk so, it scares me.'

_Not really hearing Anna at all Ffamran turned to face her, but saw instead the vague outline of his own great escape. _

_He reached out and took both her hands in his, as they rested nervously plucking at the embroidered hem of her tunic, he squeezed those hands._

'I have decided to escape, Anna. I won't be party to this farce any longer. So you see you really shouldn't waste any more of your time on me. I won't be here much longer.'

'Ffamran, what do you mfffph!'

_In all honesty Ffamran was as surprised as Anna when he caught the back of her carefully styled head and pulled her close to kiss her fully and entirely inappropriately on the lips._

_He had never kissed a girl before. He had never had the desire to, probably due to that rather large anti-social streak. _

_Now however he found that perhaps he had been missing out on a readily available pleasure after all. _

_He was even more certain of the fact when Anna Zaagabaath decided to ignore any token resistance she might make in the name of propriety and parted her lips to allow him greater access, while clutching the high neck of his shirt collar in her fists. _

_Ffamran decided at that moment that wherever his life took him and whoever he was destined to become when he finally did away with Ffamran __Mid__ Bunansa he would make a point of enjoying this particular social interaction as often as he could. _


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Ten: Obscure motivations and acts of international altruism

Balthier awoke with a jolt and for a moment could not remember either where he was, or completely who he was.

The moment of disassociation lasted but a heartbeat and then he was himself again and rolling out of his bunk in the Strahl.

Rubbing a hand over his jaw he grimaced to feel the friction of stubble coating his cheeks.

At six months passed twenty he could no longer escape the irritation of a daily shave and he missed the days when his face was as smooth as a babe's behind.

This was mostly due to his exceedingly well hidden aversion to mirrors.

Pulling on britches and rooting in his wardrobe for a clean towel and fresh shirt and vest, he stepped out into the gangway of the Strahl and headed towards the bathroom.

Most ships (and in fact most houses in all Ivalice) did not have a fully functioning bathroom like the Strahl. But Balthier had the standards of a Leading Man to maintain and would retain this luxury and hang the expense.

The mirror was waiting for him when he closed the door and he grudgingly wiped the condensation from the fogged surface (Fran had clearly woken early to use the facilities before him).

Balthier glared confrontationally at his reflection.

His sun-bleached and deliberately lightened hair, now a shade that defied description between a pale brown and a muddy blonde, fell limply over his forehead and threatened to curl in the hot, damp air.

(He made a mental note to get a haircut post haste.)

His skin tone was still pale, features still overly sharp and his mouth was missing the habitual smirk that so made Balthier who he was.

That was because first thing in the morning, trapped in the impartial and painful honesty of the mirror, he was not Balthier, but Ffamran.

It was for this reason Balthier maintained such a sharp-toothed edge of elaborate vanity; it was his disguise.

Certainly he saw no sensible reason for any self respecting adult to dress in anything less than their best, but more importantly, Balthier believed that the clothes made the man.

Without the spit and polish, Balthier retained the irrational and unshakable fear that somehow he would become Ffamran once more, trapped in a life he hated, and everything he had done since escaping Archades would prove to be only a dream.

Forty minutes of intensive grooming later and Balthier was confident that his sense of self was impregnable and all lingering traces of Ffamran had been eradicated (at least until tomorrow morning).

The hard part over with all Balthier had to do now was brave his partner's - _displeasure – _with him and they should be away towards a nice little adventure in no time whatsoever.

Fran was waiting for him in the cockpit when he sauntered in and took his seat in the pilot's chair.

'The Army of Liberation are dangerous Balthier.' Fran stated coolly, for the umpteenth time, as she dutifully keyed in the co-ordinates he had given her the night before and he started the engines.

'That would depend on your point of view, Fran. Certainly if they were guilty of all the sundry acts of insurrection the Empire accuses them of they would be the greatest threat Ivalice has ever known.'

'You do not believe they are guilty of their crimes?'

Balthier shrugged, 'Some of them, certainly. Landissians are a high-strung lot and since the Landis war the 'Army' have nurtured quite a grudge towards Archadia.'

'I wonder then that they will have dealings with you.' Fran retorted. 'You wear your nationality on your sleeve Balthier despite your best intentions.'

Balthier glanced quickly at her as they took off from Balfonheim and headed due west towards the Mosphoran Highwaste.

He did not like her assertion at all. It was true, which was why he disliked it.

'That is why I am hoping they are not quite the violent menace the senate would paint them to be.'

Fran cast a glance his way, 'They are not expecting you Balthier?'

'Not as such.' He admitted. 'I have a friend in the Highwaste who will greet us warmly.'

Fran examined one of the monitors and frowned, 'We should make a detour due south, there is a storm brewing ahead.'

' Right.' Balthier adjusted their flight path.

Once they were flying clear Fran returned to their conversation, 'Our last meeting with a 'friend' of yours did not end well, Balthier.'

Balthier sighed; there was little he could say to that.

'I do know what I am doing Fran, be assured of that.' He added after a few moments.

'I am glad; perhaps you would inform me of your intentions also?' Her tone danced the knife edge of sarcasm and Balthier blinked, surprised.

'Do you remember a few weeks ago I took a small sojourn alone?'

'I remember.' Fran nodded.

'Well, the purpose of that evening was not the night of debauchery I may have led you to believe_.' _He admitted reluctantly.

'I had suspected as much.' Fran responded, 'You were meeting with this _f__riend_ were you not, the one who calls the Highwaste home?'

Balthier nodded, 'His name is Hamish Fon Denbak, he is Landissian.'

'And of the Army of Liberation, also?' Fran's voice was soft, insistent but not harshly so.

There was still the option of lying to her, she would know but she would say not one word against him.

'Yes.'

That was why he did not wish to lie to her; because she would let him.

'And,' Balthier admitted, 'he asked me to use my, shall we say, _contacts_ to help the Army prepare the people of Nalbina in case the Empire should attack.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, 'Indeed, and what contacts are those, more men such as the Street Ear?'

She was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him tell it his way. Truly she was too good to him.

Because she was giving him the rope to hang himself, he did just that by answering only part of her question and only in the fashion that suited him.

'When the Empire invades, the Highwaste is the best chance the people of Nalbina have for escape. The Empire will look to infiltrate the Highwaste, to prevent any such escapes.'

Fran raised her eyebrow once more and he saw concern flicker behind her large, almond eyes.

' War is no game Balthier, to meddle in such is to invite one's own death.'

Balthier frowned squeezing his fingers around the steering bars of the Strahl, 'I have no intention of signing up to fight the Empire, Fran.'

Which was the truth; all he wanted to do was run from anything and everything that bore the mark of his home. But some nagging sense of conscience or sheer insanity would not let him.

He did not think Fran would be able to relate to his reasoning, which was incomprehensible even to himself.

'Balthier.' Fran's voice was sharp; she must be able to sense his unease, 'What is your purpose?'

He turned almost involuntarily to face her, and spoke from his soul, 'Fran, please. I need to do this. I will explain once we land in Nalbina.'

Fran's eyes had widened at his slightly harried tones and now she stared at him intently, her expression disturbingly still.

'You are playing a treacherous game Balthier. You meddle in deep waters.' She murmured, her words and her fathomless eyes seemed to suggest that she could see into the depths of his soul.

'I see shadows in your eyes that speak of far darker things, do not let them cloud your judgement.'

'I prefer to consider my actions those of any concerned citizen of Ivalice, who wishes to do his part for the peace of all nations.'

He rebuffed her blandly ignoring her enigmatic warning, suddenly completely unable to meet her eyes.

He had spent the last three and a half years running from everything and anything that reminded him of home, of his true self. He no longer possessed the means to be honest with himself, let alone her.

After all, her good opinion of him was one of the few falsehoods he still believed in. He would not hasten her departure by being truthful.

As if she sensed the darkness he was suddenly drowning in Fran did not press him and instead matched his flippant tone with her own cool, detached, humour.

'This sudden sense of international altruism is not pirate-like.' Fran quipped dryly.

'On the contrary Fran, I can think of no better way for the leading man to leave his mark, and make his fortune.'

He retorted, relieved and intensely grateful to the depths of Fran's empathy and her seemingly endless patience with his, admittedly eccentric, ways.

'And,' He added slyly, 'if our actions can inconvenience Archadia's war effort in any way I consider that equal incentive.'


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Eleven: Opening a dialogue with a street ear; the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

A/N: Just a note to say thank you to everyone reading and reviewing this story (Particularly Talim-Hime and Zaz9 Zaa0) and I'm sorry if the plot seems to be going slowly but I promise some action scenes and some possible romance are in the works. Plus, for those who read it, the return of some old 'friends' from 'The Stuff Legends are Made Of.'

* * *

_Ffamran__ clanked along the white washed corridors of the __Archades__ Judiciary gaol, the place the Empire dumped its malcontents, its rabble-raisers and its unwashed masses who did not warrant the special attentions of Judge __Magisters_

_At one time or another almost the entire population of Old __Archades__ had passed through these cells for a warm bed, a cooked meal, and a roof over their heads. The situation had passed the point of ludicrous long ago. _

_When the first frosts of winter descended it was a guarantee that petty crime rates and subsequent arrests would sky rocket as __Vulgars__ clambered over each other to be brought into the gaol out of the cold. _

_Ffamran__ rather enjoyed the nights he was ordered to man the desk as Imperial soldiers brought in the sundry queue of emaciated beggars. It was not so much that he enjoyed the company of filthy lay-__abouts__ but at least there was __an honesty__ to their criminality, unlike the Judiciary. _

_He had been ensconced at the processing desk for something like two hours, as the wall mounted timepiece crept towards the small hours before dawn, immersed in a mechanics manual on aviation theory ( as close as he would ever get to airship piloting in this life) __Ffamran__ reluctantly hid the manual under a pile of paperwork as two hoplites thundered towards him, a dishevelled looking dark haired youth (who looked to be __Ffamran's__ own age) pressed between them. _

'Got a right smart-alec 'ere.' _One of the Hoplites sneered and __Ffamran__ was momentarily confused as to whom the man referred, the prisoner, or himself? _

_At this moment the boy lifted his lolling head to reveal a face that had clearly made close acquaintance __with a__ hoplites gauntleted fist, if the bloodied nose and split lip was any indication. _

'Jules, me name is Jules, not _Alec.' _

'Last name?' _Ffamran__ interrupted before the Hoplite could further pummel the prisoner into submission, scratching the name 'Jules' onto the processing form. _

'Enkara, Jules Enkara.' _The boy squinted at __Ffamran__, who had discarded his helmet which he was currently using as a waste paper basket under the desk. _

'Oy, prisoners ain't allowed to talk.'

_The second, previously silent, hoplite reprimanded the prisoner, who curled his lip back intending to say something unbelievable stupid no doubt to two men who had little better to do (and little they enjoyed more) than beating __Vulgars__ to bloody pulps._

'And the offence?'

_Ffamran__ demanded wanting to return to the article on the merits and disadvantages of autopilot flight he had been perusing until so rudely interrupted. _

'Speaking me bloody mind, 'pparently that's an offence these days.' _The prisoner chipped in before either Hoplite could answer. __Ffamran__ sighed._

'Could you elaborate further?'

_The form consisted of a number of tick box offences and _speaking me bloody mind _wasn't listed. Though __Ffamran__ thought it would be quite soon, freedom of speech being nothing more than figure of speech in __Archades__ these days. _

' He was causing an affray, sir.' _The second Hoplite stated primly. _

_Ffamran__ quirked an eyebrow, _'Really, another one? Fancy that.'

_He ticked the box marked affray, with a wry flourish._

_Causing affray being the catch-all euphemism for any number of much more serious and less tangible offences such as 'we didn't like the cut of his jib', or the prisoner had offended the wrong person, or in fact hadn't done a damn thing but we thought we'd arrest him anyway because there was precious little else to do in the middle of the night in the alleys of Old __Archades_

_Ffamran__ thought that he had in fact heard any and all variant definitions and uses of the arrest worthy offence of 'causing affray'. _

'Cell twelve is vacant.'

_Ffamran__ instructed after having first taken the boy's finger prints and any and all weapons and personal affects he might use either to escape or do physical harm to himself; if there was any bodily harm to be done to prisoners the soldiers liked to be the ones to dole it out. _

'Ah, yer are too kind sir.'

_The prisoner sneered as he was led away and __Ffamran__ pulled his manual from under the pieces of neglected paperwork and found his place in the article once more. _

_Sometime near dawn __Ffamran__ hauled himself up from the desk and went to the cold store where the prisoners' first meals of the day were stored. Unleavened bread and water but for some of the wretches in the cells it was a feast to be savoured. _

'What's this then, room service as well? I am honoured.'

_The Prisoner in cell twelve scoffed as he reclined on the narrow bunk attached to the wall of his cell, hands behind his head and one knee hooked over the other, the very picture of easeful comfort. _

_Ffamran__ bit back a sneer of his own as he placed the prisoner's plate down on the small, wobbly, table and started to leave the cell._

'Odd, don't yer think?' _The prisoner called after him, halting __Ffamran's__ exit._

'This set-up I mean.' _The dark haired boy sat up crossed legged on his bed, shrewdness in his eyes._

'I mean 'ere I am just some alley scum all cosy like with the son of Archades greatest scientific mind bringin' me my brekkie.'

'Excuse me?'

_Ffamran__ shouldn't really be surprised that this boy knew who he was. The __Vulgar's__ did their best to stay abreast of whose who and what was what in __Archades__ corridors of power in the hopes they might use that information to fuel their own elevation, yet it still rankled. _

'Oh, I don't mean noffin by it, sir; just think it's odd, tis all. That 'ere I am in the slammer an' I got one of the richest young lords in all Archades serving me breakfast in bed; ironic, that the word, ain't it?'

Ffamran could feel a nasty sneer twist his lips as he watched the smug humour dance in the prisoner's eyes. Electric dislike passed between them both.

'Indeed. I would suggest you enjoy it while you can, I fear fate is rarely this _ironically _beneficent twice in one life time.'

_Ffamran__ took some pleasure in the confused look the prisoner gave him, clearly understanding the tone but not the vocabulary __Ffamran__ had used. _

_Afterwards as he watched dawn paint the __Archades__ skyline in a palette of pastel shades of pink and blue and gold __Ffamran__ was still ruffled by his encounter with the smug Vulgar, not so much by the __Vulgar's__ actions but by his response. _

_He had been offended by the fact that the Vulgar, a common, no doubt illiterate, filthy alley dweller should dare to consider himself equal to __Ffamran__ himself. _

_Tapping his fingers on the window pane __Ffamran__ realised that if he truly wanted to leave this life behind him, he would have to learn what it meant to be without status, breeding, and a fortune so large even the __Bunansa__ family accountants had given up calculating the accumulated wealth. _

_Even as the thought repulsed him __Ffamran__ realised that the Vulgar in cell twelve may be able to assist him in this endeavour. _

_Ffamran__, who found it difficult to relate to his own peers, men and women of his own class and station in life, struggled to comprehend rubbing shoulders with the common people. _

_But despite the in-breed prejudice of his Gentry heritage __Ffamran's__ mind could see beyond it, to the beatific freedom that lay in throwing off the shackles of his class and being judged on the merits of his words and his actions, not on the size of his inheritance. _

_Ivalice__ existed somewhere beyond the red-hewn towers of __Archades__, a world where he had no defined place or expected role. A world where he could be whomever he chose and __consort__ with whomever he pleased. _

_An odd smile playing upon his lips, heart thumping with a near visceral longing for anonymous freedom, __Ffamran__ made his way back to cell twelve determined, though he knew not how, to open up a dialogue with the opinionated prisoner, who would be a means to setting __Ffamran__ free. _


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Twelve: It isn't who you know that counts, it's who knows you

_A/N: Yes, my Nono is a proto-Marxist socialist, don't ask me why, he just is. ; 0 _

* * *

' Don't worry about the Strahl, kupo, I've got everything under control.' 

Balthier had already turned away from the ship and started towards the main foyer of the Nalbina aerodrome when Nono's cheerful assertion stopped him in his tracks.

Beside him Fran stopped and gave him an eloquent look. Balthier sighed, rolled his shoulders and walked back to the happy Moogle.

'Remember Nono, we are to maintain a low profile.' He began mildly and the hovering Moogle nodded his head amiably.

Balthier squinted into large, liquid opaque black eyes and wished Moogle eyes were even half as emphatic as Viera, but alas he had no idea how much of what he truly _meant _was readily comprehended by the third member of their crew.

' I don't know how long we shall be docked here, Nono, and considering the current climate we are already like to arouse suspicion with an Archadian model of airship. We cannot afford to attract any other, unwanted, attention.'

It wasn't that he disliked the snow-white Nono, because he was in fact very fond of the would-be revolutionary Moogle who wished to bring peace and good cheer to his brethren and all Ivalice. It was just that at times Nono's agenda and that of himself and Fran did not entirely mesh.

Certainly Balthier had not forgotten the unfortunate incident in Bhujerba when Nono instigated a Moogle strike in the Lhusu Mines, which escalated into a Moogle riot over pay and conditions.

Until that day Balthier had never realised how vicious Moogles could be when sufficiently riled up on bootleg Madhu and political rhetoric.

It had been an education, to say the least, but unfortunately the ramifications of Nono's best efforts to incite his fellow Moogles to throw off the shackles of wage oppression had resulted in a very hasty retreat from Bhujerba's aerodrome and the abandonment of what could have been a very lucrative heist for himself and Fran.

Giving up on subtlety Balthier sighed, resting his hands lightly on his belt, 'Which means no open to all public seminars, no riots, no informative pamphlets and,' Balthier tried to think of any other means Nono might employ to get his philosophy across to the masses and came up momentarily blank.

'Nono, just don't do or say anything remotely inflammatory to anyone until Fran and I return, alright?' Balthier said giving up.

He watched Nono's orange plume wilt and the little Moogle sank a foot from the air dejectedly, the light of honest fervour stuttering out in those shiny black eyes. Balthier felt like an absolute heel, which many would say he was, but he certainly didn't want to be viewed as one by a member of his crew.

'Understood, kupo.' Nono said in subdued tones.

'Right, good.'

Balthier hesitated for a moment throwing a guilty glance over his shoulder where Fran stood by the main doors to the aerodrome resting one hand on her hip and tapping her foot impatiently.

'When I've concluded this little business venture, we'll take a commercial flight over to Bhujerba, see how the Kupo movement is coming along, hmmm?'

He _knew_ he shouldn't have said anything further to Nono at all but it would take a stronger man than he to resist the look of pure rapturous delight that heralded this statement.

'Oh, yes, kupo!'

'Right,' Balthier muttered gathering himself, 'We'll be off then Nono.' He gave the Moogle a firm look. 'Remember, we are to maintain a low profile.'

Nono nodded his head vigorously and then tapped the side of his tiny snub nose conspiratorially. 'You can count on me, kupo.'

Balthier decided to leave while the going was good and simply hoped that whatever Nono did would not result in another riot.

' You promised him something, what did you say?'

Fran was waiting for him at the door to the aerodrome foyer and Balthier sighed in open defeat.

Sometimes he wondered at the peculiar brand of masochism inherent within him that he had picked for crew a Viera it was almost impossible to hide anything _from_ and a Moogle it was almost impossible to deny anything _too_.

' I said we could return to Bhujerba.'

'Balthier!' Fran stopped and stared at him, exasperated.

'Yes, I know, it was bloody stupid of me.' Balthier snapped back irritated.

'Next time, Fran, you can be the one to say no to him.' He added peevishly.

Fran sighed, shaking her hair behind her back, 'I cannot.' She admitted.

'It is the eyes, such sadness fills them.'

Balthier nodded, ' I think he does it deliberately. He plays us both like a fiddle.'

Fran nodded, 'There is the reason Moogles make excellent salesmen.'

Balthier stifled a chuckle and saw the ghost of a smile flit across Fran's lips as he cut a sideways glance towards her as they strolled, ignoring the curious stares a male Hume and Viera always attract, across the aerodrome foyer.

'Where in the Highwaste does this Hamish Fon Denbak reside?'

Fran inquired as they stepped out of the aerodrome and both their gazes were drawn towards the magnificent edifice of the Nalbina Fortress; all around them the Nalbina bazaar was in full swing.

' Truthfully I have not the faintest inkling.'

He admitted, looking towards a stall selling Nabradian mosaic furnishings appreciatively. He had always been partial to Nabradian art and design.

Fran looked down on him, ' We shall struggle to locate your friend in that case.' She pointed out dryly.

He smiled thinly, ' It's not for us to do the seeking Fran, all we need do is make sure someone who knows of us, finds us.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, while casually examining a ream of Dalmascan silk, the main draw of the haberdashery stall next to the furniture vendor.

' I am not sure I like the sound of that, many unkind eyes may watch for known pirates.'

'True but it is the way of this sort of intrigue, it is less about who you _know_ as it is who knows _you_.'

Fran shook her head but he could clearly see the light of high amusement in her eyes, even as she sought to disguise it with the sweep of her hair across her shoulders.

'Humes, must you always seek trouble when none needs be found?'

Balthier, spying a tailor's stall a few feet away where he might commission the fashioning of more white shirts, allowed a genuine smile to alight on his face.

'Better to go and find trouble on our terms than have trouble find us.'

'As you say, Balthier.'

Fran murmured indulgently, plucking at his shirt sleeve and pointing out to him a particularly nice Rozzarian cotton from the tailor's stall while the tailor himself hovered close by expectantly, as tailors generally did whenever Balthier was around.

'It is fortunate that this exercise in _being seen_ also allows you to enhance your abundant wardrobe.'

Fran pointed out with understated wit as they left the tailor's, Balthier having been fitted for three new shirts and a vest which he could pick up in two days time.

Balthier smirked, 'You cut me to the quick Fran.'

He told her cheerfully as they strolled through the busy streets of Nalbina town, such a bustling vibrant place, sheltered from the harsh winds of the desert and the Highwaste by the elegant shadow of the fortress, towards the Tower, Nalbina's very own tavern.

'It is strange for me to fathom now, that until making your acquaintance I had managed quite well without so many visits to taverns.'

Balthier looked over at Fran as they pressed up against the wall of the lively tavern. It was standing room only to listen to the exuberant musical styling's of the Nabradian musical troupe.

' First you accuse me of narcissism and now you imply I am also a lush, are you trying to tell me something Fran?'

He quipped only half in jest. Fran's lips twitched into a smile, though she declined from responding, her eyes and perhaps also her ears focused on the musicians, who were, truth be told, rather good.

For a little while they remained in companionable silence. Fran appeared intent on the jostling crowds filling the tavern to the rafters and the pairs of dancers who attempted to perform the Nabradia taranta to the musician's lively jig with rather less than exemplary results.

For his part, Balthier took the opportunity to study Fran. Every tiny, fleeting change in her expression, every shift of body weight, all of it, even the most inconsequential motion, may hold the key to understanding her mind.

Of course, he also simply enjoyed looking on her, how could any man fail too?

He was deliberating the curve of her nose when he accidently caught the eye of a furtive fair haired man, whose shoulders were almost as broad as he was tall, staring meaningfully at himself and Fran.

With that colouring and that build the man could only be Landissian, and while it was possible he was simply staring at Fran because he had never seen a Viera in the flesh before, especially one who was tapping her foot in time with the drum beat of the band, Balthier sincerely doubted such benign coincidence.

' Fran, I think we have been found.' He murmured softly, barely moving his lips.

'Yes,' Fran agreed equally unmoved in appearance, yet not missing a thing, ' I have seen him also.'

Perhaps sensing something in their demeanour, or merely growing bored of staring at them, the broad-shouldered man pushed his way through the throng of music lovers towards the two. Balthier brushed his hand to the dagger at his hip and Fran shifted her weight into a relaxed fighting stance.

' Greetings friends,' the man began in a thick Landissian accent. ' I could not help but notice that you, like myself, are not from this region. Perhaps you too are planning to walk the Highwaste?'

The man delivered his carefully scripted lines with such false lightness that Fran gave him an incredulous look and Balthier winced at the man's ineptitude. It was truly no wonder Landis had fallen; her people were, to a man, such blunt instruments.

Nevertheless Balthier had a part to play and he would do so with his usual panache.

' Indeed we are destined for the Highwaste, friend. Perchance are you from Landis?'

The man nodded fervently, reminding Balthier somewhat irreverently of Nono, ' Aye, once and ever more I am a son of that great republic.'

Balthier couldn't resist sharing a quick, knowing glance with Fran, before turning back to the man.

' Quite.' He agreed dryly. Fran shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a tiny hint of impatience.

' Perhaps, come the morning we should travel the Highwaste together? There is safety in numbers, or so I have heard.'

The Landissian looked momentarily thrown off balance as Balthier, impatient to have this over with, stole the man's lines.

'Aye.' The man nodded trying to gather his wits, ' The morning it will be then.'

He turned and started to wade through the crowd once more, Balthier raised an amused eyebrow and Fran sighed at the man's slow-wittedness. Balthier called after the man.

' We shall be waiting at the mouth of the Highwaste beyond the Fortress once the bell tolls eleven.'

He informed the man, their supposed guide, with due solicitude. It would not do to accidentally lose their addlebrained guide before they even began their journey. The man turned back and nodded his head before disappearing like a stone sinking into the ocean, within the crowd of tavern patrons.

'Once I did question how a nation of warriors such as Landis could be so easily cowed by the Empire.'

Fran admitted as they made their way up to the room above the tavern they had rented out for the night.

' And now?' Balthier inquired, opening the door and gesturing grandly for Fran to proceed him, which she did while ignoring his chivalrous gesture entirely.

' Now, I no longer wonder why they lost.' Fran conceded with a caustically raised eyebrow.

Balthier laughed as he closed and locked the door for the night.

'Well at least we meet a variety of interesting people Fran.'

He walked across the room and dropped down onto one of the twin beds, foregoing good posture as Fran cared little for appearance in any respect.

' A variety of people, I shall grant you, but choose to withhold judgement on their _interest._'

Balthier felt his lips quiver in amusement as Fran arranged herself, demurely cross-legged, across the counterpane of her bed. A surge of affection rose in him for her and he opened his mouth wishing to find some way of letting her know how much her companionship meant to him.

'Fran?'

'Yes?'

She looked up at him from where she had been unfastening her double spiked heels; he watched her wriggle her delicately clawed toes, momentarily mesmerised, his thoughts scattered.

'Goodnight Fran.'

He mumbled somewhat pathetically, though he knew, with fatal certainty, that he did not own the words that could explain to her his feelings, nor did he think she would particularly care to hear them.

Fran looked at him for a long moment, almost quizzically, perhaps sensing that those were not the words he had meant to say.

' Goodnight Balthier.'

She let him escape once more to hide behind words he did not mean and while he felt a little like a man who has just escaped the hangman's noose, he also couldn't help the twist of anguish in his gut that he had let an opportunity to be honest with Fran slip away from him again.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Thirteen: Truth hurts but lies will kill you slowly

A/N: Yes, Ffamran is a snob – he can't help it, he was just raised that way. Jules' language is a little rougher than in the game because he is younger and not as practiced at his trade.

Raz, I barely remember from the game, so if he seems out of character I apologize.

* * *

_The rain created a heavy grey backdrop __to their two step dance as the Judge__ and the Streetear paced around each other on the bridge adjoining Old Archades to the higher reaches of the Capital. _

'A sky pirate?' _Ffamran could feel himself sneer at the ridiculousness of Jules' suggestion._

'That's right, _Master _Ffamran.' _Jules worked hard to make the title sound like an insult. He smirked through his rain sodden fall of hair. _

'And that's the best you can offer me? A _sky pirate_?'

_Ffamran, when he was a boy, had been fascinated by the macabre and the infamous; he had read dozens upon dozens of books regarding the exploits of the greatest, most notorious villains ever to blight the Empire with their presence. _

_But he had been a small child then with few friends and could be forgiven for such infantile and ridiculous fancies. Ffamran wasn't a child anymore and knew now that one such as he didn't have the freedom for day dreams._

_He existed for the advancement of others, not his own enjoyment._

' 'E's from the Port of Balfonheim an' 'e's got a right keen int'rest in freeing your Landissian terrorist.'

'Why?' _Ffamran asked succinctly unable to see the connection between Landissian terrorists and sky pirates. _

_But then neither had Ffamran had not quite parsed out to his own satisfaction why he had decided to sever his ties with his old life by breaking the condemned Hamish Von Denbak, Archades most hated supposed terrorist, out of prison. _

_Except that it was sufficiently dramatic to appease the restless spirit in Ffamran that longed to be the person he imagined when he looked into the mirror and not the dour, dutiful son of Empire he actually _saw _in his reflection. _

_Jules scoffed in disgust of his ignorance, _'It's obviously en't it? Balfonheim don't want the Empire runnin' their port so they's goin' to support anyone that's anti-Archades.'

_Ffamran restrained from commenting on the lack of foresight that particular political viewpoint illustrated and instead shrugged his shoulders, hoping to shake off the rain that was soaking through the fine wool of his overcoat._

' And this pirate can be trusted can he?'

_Ffamran wondered at the twisted turns his life had taken that he would speak of trust with a street ear in training, but shook off the thought. His life was not his own anymore, why try to make sense of it all? _

_Jules sniggered, _'It's funny, 'e asked the same fing 'bout you, mate. 'E says to me, Jules, how can we trust a bloody Judge, why'd he want to mastermind a prison break, of all things?'

_Ffamran flinched slightly and turned to face the street ear directly. He was thankful that the foul weather kept people off the streets; miraculously for Archades they had no eavesdroppers for this sensitive conversation. _

'And what did you tell this pirate?' _Ffamran asked in a very precise tone._

'Tol' 'im yer had yer reasons to want out o' the city. An' reason enough to want t'burn some bridges along the way.' _Jules winked at him in a vaguely insulting, distinctly insinuating manner. _

'I see.' _Ffamran couldn't argue against Jules assessment. He did want to sever all ties with Archades and his former self, it was the only way he could ever be free. _

_Ignoring Jules for the moment Ffamran walked over to the bridge's side wall and looked over the edge and down onto the water of the Saracades River, which ran through Old Archades and from whence the Capital derived her name. _

_He watched the rain pit and __spatter__ the polluted surface of the river, setting the oily scum coating the water to ripple in muted rainbow shades. _

'What is this pirate's name?'

_He asked still looking down at the water. Further down river the large ships and trading boats docked coming in from the Phon Coast with the goods and raw materials that could not be transported by airship. _

'Me name's Raz, an' you don't smell like any Judge I ever tangled with.'

_Ffamran spun around to face the owner of this new voice and for a split second was utterly confused as he saw only Jules grinning smugly at him from the other side of the bridge, then Ffamran looked down towards the ground._

'You're the pirate?' _Incredulity, if not naked shock, caused Ffamran's voice to rise harshly. _

_He stared down at the smallest Bangaa he had ever seen, the sharp faced creature wearing a ridiculously large brimmed hat and a raincoat that was too big for it. _

_Ffamran looked back up to Jules sharply wondering if this was what passed for humour in the alleys of Old Archades. _

'You have a problem with me size boyo?'

_The dwarf Bangaa demanded, baring teeth that were sharp for all that they were tiny. Ffamran shook his head, cast a dark look at Jules, who was laughing uproariously and leaning drunkenly against the opposite side of the bridge, and turned on his heel disgusted by the whole affair. _

_Or at least that had been Ffamran's plan and as such he was quite shocked, not to mention badly winded, as something grabbed hold of his ankle from behind and pulled his leg out from under him with considerable strength. _

_Ffamran ended up falling face first down onto the slick wet stone of the bridge, smacking his chin and accidently biting his tongue in doing so, with the diminutive Bangaa standing on his back (and he was surprisingly heavy despite his size) with the muzzle of a miniature gun pressed to his temple. _

' Try and turn yer back on me now, boyo.' _The Bangaa hissed triumphantly. _

_A surge of intense irritation rose in Ffamran who was now soaked, his coat likely ruined, and his mouth filling with blood from his bleeding tongue._

' Whatever you say.'

_He hissed, ignoring the gun poised against his left ear, he bucked upwards, using his elbows, as hard as he could to dislodge the Bangaa, whose weight on his back was making it hard to breath. _

_What followed was too undignified to describe in full, but had anyone other than Jules been present they would have been treated to an interesting scuffle between the miniature Bangaa and the juvenile Judge for possession of the gun. _

_The would-be street ear, the only audience to this impromptu wrestling match, almost gave himself apoplexy from laughing so hard. _

_After what was in truth only about ninety seconds the scuffle was over and Ffamran and the Bangaa glowered at each other, the gun having slipped through a hole in the __wall__ of the bridge and down into the waters below. _

'That gun weren't cheap.' _The little Bangaa, who nevertheless still possessed a fair proportion of his larger brethren's physical strength, hissed at Ffamran._

'Nor was this coat.' _Ffamran retorted, spitting out a mouthful of blood and wiping distastefully at his bloody mouth. _

_His light grey wool overcoat was now liberally smeared down the front with mud, grime, and gods only knew what __else,__ and moderately decorated with Ffamran's own blood. _

_Had Ffamran not been too well brought up for that sort of vulgarity, he might have let loose some rather colourful curses that would have fit in well in Balfonheim._

_For a moment the Bangaa pirate and Ffamran simply glared at each other silently, then the Bangaa inhaled noisily and his lips split open in an enormous, fierce, grin. _

'A'ight. Don't like Judges me, but you got the scent of a right, honest crook to yer, an' I like a good crook when's I find one. I always says I can judge anybody by the ways they smell.'

'Excuse me?' _Ffamran wasn't at all sure he shouldn't be extremely offended by this statement. _

_The Bangaa cocked his head to the side, looking over to Jules who had finally managed to stop laughing and was now merely wheezing heavily over by the steps leading down into the alleys. _

' Might 'ave to work on the accent, won't last an hour in Balfonheim talkin' like a right, smarmy toff.'

'I beg your pardon?'

_Ffamran, who had the distinct impression the conversation had escaped him, looked from the Bangaa to Jules as the latter burst out into undignified fits of laughter once more and the Bangaa ambled over to Ffamram, who watched him warily. _

_The Bangaa__ stopped just in front of where Ffamran sat against the wall of the bridge and__ held out a scal__y__, clawed__ hand __towards him_

' It true you been creamin' the glitter off the tops of the Judges coffers?'

_Ffamran blinked, dazedly, looking at the hand suspiciously, '_Have I been doing _what?' _

_Did all the denizens of Balfonheim speak like this? If so he would make a point of never setting foot in the place. _

'E' wants to know about the Gil you nicked from Ghis' department.' _Jules acted as translator and Ffamran frowned, instantly on alert._

'I am sure I have no idea to what you refer.' _He replied icily._

_He may not know a great deal about the cultural nuances of low life criminals but he was certainly not stupid enough to confess a crime to strangers, or in fact, anyone at all._

_Jules snickered and pretended to doff an imaginary hat to him, _'Anyfing y'say, _Master _Ffamran.'

_The bangaa, who had given his name but Ffamran had completely forgotten it, nodded as if pleased._

' There's a brain in yer, then, for all that yer a toff.'

_Ffamran decided not to dignify that statement with a response and instead painfully rose to his feet, knowing that he would be sporting an assortment of colourful bruises in the morning, and tried to walk towards the respectable end of the bridge without limping. _

' Raz has some acquaintances that might be int'rested in 'elping out on this prison break yer plannin' _Master _Ffamran.'

_Jules called to him and Ffamran sighed and turned his head to look over his shoulder, to see the Bangaa nodding his head._

' Can't free Hamish alone, but Remus will help for the right price. Come by the docks in two days an' look for the _'Syren'_ she'll have red sails, tells the men at the dock you a friend o' mine an' they'll give yer no trouble.'

_Ffamran opened his mouth to argue, to point out that this was his bloody plan in the first place and who did this Bangaa think he was, taking charge? The sensible part of Ffamran's mind that was less affected by his woeful state of dress and general bad mood, realised, however, that he needed all the help he could get. _

'Very well.' _He muttered with as much good grace as he could muster, which he conceded, wasn't very much at all. _

_Without further word he hurried towards the ardent thronged streets of Nilbasse and towards the sky cab rank where he could escape back to the stifling, soul crushing familiarity of Central. _

_Though he had no idea what awaited him when he finally reached his home in Highgarden Terrace Ffamran didn't care. His father could be rampaging through the halls with his twin rifles for all he cared right at that moment._

_It had been a very long day and Ffamran was already questioning not just his sanity (which he knew was shaky at best) but the desire to take flight and leave the safety of all he knew. _

_What was worth more, he wondered, his certainty and sense of self or the integrity of his soul? _

_Ffamran had no answer for his own restless mind, but he knew that soon he would have to make that choice. He just hoped that his final decision was the right one._


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fourteen: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

_A/N: don't you just hate exposition?...the dreaded necessary evil! This is a talky 'let's get the plot explained before we start blowing things up' chapter. I've tried to make it punchy but...well it's exposition! I can only promise that very soon all hell will break loose. I would also like to point out that while we all know the fate of Nabudis none of the characters could imagine such devestation until after it happened, so don't be too hard on Balthier for his theory being wrong. _

_P.S Merry Christmas everyone I hope you all enjoy the festive season!_

* * *

Balthier sneezed, for the seventh time in the last ninety minutes, rooted out his handkerchief already smeared in the pervasive red dust of the Highwaste and blew his nose. 

Fran watched him with an ironically raised eyebrow, as their guide, Guido, waited impatiently further down the winding path between the gritty red rock formations and jagged cliffs of the Mosphoran.

'You are sickening?'

Fran inquired as he coughed and spat out a mouthful of phlegm, undignified and hardly very gentlemanly but his sinuses were swimming and his eyes streaming, so he thought he might be excused this once.

'Allergies.' He croaked trying to maintain a sense of nonchalant ease even as he felt another sneeze building.

Fran studied him for a moment and he wondered what the slight puckering of her brow foretold.

' It will rain come nightfall, the air should clear thereafter.'

'How can you tell?' Balthier glanced up at the faultless blue sky questioningly and then back to Fran.

Generally speaking he would be inclined to believe Fran if she told him the stars would fall from the sky and the ocean would evaporate, but his insatiable curiosity regarding all things Fran demanded he at least query her statement.

' I can smell the storm.' She said simply, turning to follow Guido.

Balthier bit down on a slight smile. Of course she could smell a storm so far off even the clouds had yet to form.

Oddly heartened by this exchange, though he doubted a little rain would do a thing for his pounding head and muffled senses, he ambled after her and their taciturn guide.

They encountered few fiends along the route, asides from a Wary Wolf and the occasional scavenging pack of Worgens.

Fran and Guido did most of the fiend despatching. Balthier threw the occasional potion or readied the odd, badly aimed, spell to aid one or the other of them, but refrained from firing any shots from his gun as Guido had said it was better to move as quietly as they could through the Highwaste.

Balthier had no objections to avoiding conflict. Fran was a better combatant than he had any wish to be and wielding large edged weapons to cleave beasties to bits was about all Landissian's were good for, so he would not ruin Guido's chance to shine.

Sometime in the late afternoon, a good three to four hours since they left Nalbina, they reached the densely wooded oasis that served as the Army of Liberation's secret hiding place.

By this point Balthier could barely make ten steps without either sneezing or coughing. He could hardly see through his streaming eyes and his white shirt was almost orange, coated as it was with the brick red dust and allergen rich drifting pollen of the Mosphoran blooms.

Hamish was going to be paying out a king's ransom simply to reimburse him for the indignity he had suffered in the last few hours travelling at this rate, without even considering the effort he had expended chasing rumours from the Glen of Fatulla to Safrosa Bay.

' Ah, Ffamran, finally arrived I see.'

Hamish made his unhurried way towards them, a gaggle of ridiculously over-armed, muscle-bound fair haired men and women trailing after him.

Balthier was about ready to give up any pretence of politeness altogether and opened his mouth to form a scathing retort but sneezed instead. If the ground had opened up to swallow him then he would not have minded in the least.

As first impressions went, his would at least be memorable; although for all the wrong reasons.

'Trust a Landissian to pick a place like this to set up camp.'

He muttered, straightening up as Hamish stopped in front of them, but it wasn't _them _he was looking at, it was Fran.

'You did not mention you'd have company, Ffamran.'

Hamish was staring up at Fran, who was taller even than he, with a slightly slack jawed expression. His eyes kept dropping to Fran's bare thighs and the lace covered cut out section of her leather attire.

Balthier felt a smile twitch up his lips, perhaps something could be salvaged from this encounter after all.

'Hamish allow me to introduce my business partner, Fran. It is she you should thank for attaining the information I have for you.'

Fran tapped her foot impatiently on the dusty, mossy ground of the verdant oasis and waited for the man to look his fill. After a few seconds in which time Fran's hand moved almost imperceptibly towards her battleaxe sheathed at her waist, Balthier cleared his throat pointedly.

' I heard you had partnered with a Viera, but I thought it merely gossip.'

Hamish admitted, though the stress he put on the word 'partnered' suggested he had drastically misinterpreted Balthier's meaning. The look of grudging admiration in the older man's eyes stopped Balthier from pointing out his misconception, however.

Fran simply looked bored, though he doubted anyone except he would know it. She slanted an eloquent look his way.

'I'm delighted news of our exploits has travelled so far.'

Balthier said briskly, hiding the genuine pleasure he received in knowing that his name was reaching the far flung corners of Ivalice, even if it had more to do with Fran than any of his nefarious and daring deeds.

' However, I would like to get on with our business. Fran and I have places we need to be.'

' You have spoken to Jules?'

'And visited the Glen of Fatulla for myself.'

Balthier nodded, carefully watching the furtive movements of the other Landissian's Hamish was rather pointedly not introducing.

The other members of Hamish rag-tag remnant of the Landissian Republican Army, who fought valiantly and utterly unsuccessfully these last eight years to free their conquered country, circled around he and Fran like the packs of Worgen they had encountered coming here.

It was quite exceedingly rude, in Balthier's opinion, and had all the subtlety of a herd of rampaging Behemoths. Fran's hand rested, quite pointedly, on the hilt of her battleaxe.

'Is there some problem, Hamish, or has living out in the wilds made you forget your manners?'

Balthier inquired dryly, nodding his head towards one of the nearest circling Landissian's, a woman as tall as Balthier himself, and markedly broader through the shoulders.

Hamish turned his head and barked out an order, in Landissian, to his troops who loitered with ill intent. The woman snapped something back, her head jerking rudely towards Balthier and a brief, guttural argument broke out.

Balthier sighed and looked over to Fran, 'Well?'

Fran shifted her weight and folded her arms across her stomach, though maintained one hand resting on the hilt of her weapon.

' They do not trust you. They suspect your motives.' Fran translated.

Decades spent among Humes and there were few dialects she could not understand. Yes, he had definitely picked wisely when searching out a partner.

Balthier almost rolled his eyes, but resisted the temptation and instead he nodded his head towards the direction they had come and he and Fran turned as one towards the exit.

'Where do you think you are going, Imperial scum?'

Balthier stopped as he heard the unmistakable sound of a bow string being drawn taut. He turned back to the angry woman who had an arrow levelled at his heart.

' Forgive me, dear madam, but I know when I'm not welcome.' He smiled coldly at the woman and turned to Hamish.

' I didn't come all this way, to the detriment of a fine shirt,' he waved his arms to illustrate the disgraceful state of his cuffs, 'to be insulted and threatened. You asked for my help and I have honoured that request, but I shall not wait about for one of your over-zealous cohorts to kill me.'

Hamish glowered at the woman, grabbing the bow and wrenching it from her grip.

'None of my people will offer you or your partner harm, Ffamran. I owe you my life and consider you friend. My people know this; though they may forget the duty of friendship during these fraught times.'

He shot a meaningful look towards the woman, who finally looked chastened. She turned still hostile, but decidedly less murderous, eyes to Balthier.

' I apologise, I spoke out of turn. I should judge you on the merit of the information you bring, not on your background.'

She added making it clear in her speech that she held little hope that the value of his 'information' would be all that great.

Balthier pressed a hand to his heart in mock gratitude, ' I will do my utmost not to disappoint you.'

He turned to Hamish without giving the unpleasant woman a chance to respond. 'Now that's settled perhaps you would be gracious enough to provide a hot beverage and something to eat? Fran and I have missed lunch.'

Hamish shook his head amusedly, ' This isn't one of your Grand Arcade restaurants, Ffamran.'

As if this was some form of signal the gathered frustrated freedom fighters dispersed into suspicious eyed clumps of twos and threes and Hamish led Balthier and Fran towards the cooking fire and assorted tents.

'Of that I am well aware.' Balthier retorted fastidiously, not bothering to point out it had been years since he had set foot in Archades.

'However I'm sure you and your troops do not survive on political fervour alone.'

Fran was watching him keenly; no doubt she had picked up the sharpness in his tone and could not fail to notice that he was answering to another name.

Balthier sighed silently dreading the eventual questions Fran was too astute to ask him in mixed company.

After a few moments Balthier and Hamish had settled down on mats around the largest cooking fire where a Worgen was turning slowly on a spit. Balthier quite abruptly lost his appetite, but had learnt since leaving Archades that if forced he could eat almost anything.

He and Hamish made pleasant conversation over lumps of spit-roasted Worgen, or rather Hamish tried to pry the information out of him and Balthier easily deflected each of his inelegant probes, then suddenly, after Balthier succumbed to another coughing fit, Fran rose from her seat on the ground.

' I will return in but a moment.'

She said before he could even ask and strolled off with utmost confidence towards a shadowed pool to the far reaches of the camp.

' Not much for talk your Viera, is she?' Hamish asked conversationally, around a mouthful of the revolting meat.

Balthier frowned, forcing himself not to watch Fran in case she made a break for it and he never saw her again. Truly, this piracy lark was making him decidedly paranoid.

'Fran, her name is Fran, and she is not _my _Viera.'

Hamish merely grunted; an amused light in his cold eyes. ' Spit it out then, Ffamran, what news of the Empire.'

Balthier sighed, ' If you are hoping for detailed plans of Archadia's chosen route to invasion you are like to be disappointed, even Jules has his limits.'

When Hamish just gave him a level, unyielding, look Balthier sighed, ' I have not even tendered a price for this information, I am hardly going to simply tell you.'

From the corner of his eye it seemed to Balthier that Fran was picking flowers or some such from a scraggly bush growing near one of the abundant pools in this wooded clearing. What was she doing?

'...seventy thousand Gil.'

Balthier turned back to Hamish, having missed most of what he had said. Thankfully he had caught the operative words. He considered the sum.

' It will do for a deposit.' Balthier said blandly, ' Do you have the Gil to hand?'

Hamish snapped his fingers and one of his lackey's nearest the fire hurried away to steer a rickety wheel barrow filled with Gil sacks emblazoned with the crest of House Solidor over to where they sat.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow questioningly as he opened one bag and saw the dull shine of all the Gil coin inside, Hamish shrugged.

' Made a successful raid on an Archadian convoy bound for the Capital from Landis. This money was stolen from the mouths of my people, your information better be worth it Ffamran.'

Balthier merely smirked at Hamish, 'Tell me, have there been many travellers crossing the Highwaste to and from Nalbina of late? Groups of itinerate labourers or scared villagers escaping the shadow of war?'

He asked in his mildest voice, brushing at a spot of Worgen grease that had dripped onto his cuff.

Hamish was immediately tense, 'Why do you ask?'

Balthier took this as a yes and felt his smirk widen, 'Next time any such group passes through it might be well for your men to waylay them a time.'

Hamish swore, catching on finally. 'That's how the bastards are doing it. We expected to see the Imperial army come in through the Salikawood or by air; my troops engage any group of men we find above the number of three.'

'As I'm sure the Imperial Army is well aware, which is why you won't find any. Instead, I should imagine, the loyal foot soldiers of Imperial expansionism have been encouraged to take their wives and children with them for a brief holiday along the Highwaste to Nalbina and onwards to Nabudis.'

Balthier explained in blandly cheerful tones. He watched the anguish contort Hamish large features.

Hamish spat in his disgust. 'Using their own families, their women and their babes in such a manner, does the Empire have no shame, no honour?'

' No.' Balthier answered him dryly.

'That's why the Imperial army generally wins its battles. All is not fair in love and war, Hamish, that is just a ruse House Solidor and the Senate like to use to lull their enemies into a false sense of security.'

'So Nabudis is to be the first target?' Hamish asked keenly.

'I couldn't say. Jules inferred that the Empire has her people strategically stationed in the shadows. I, however, suspect a two pronged attack.'

Balthier said coolly. Fran was coming back with a collection of straggly weeds in one hand and a steaming cup of hot water given to her by one of the less unpleasant army members, in the other.

Hamish nodded, 'They won't risk losing the advantage of surprise against Dalmasca by engaging Nabudis alone. The Citadel of Nabradia is too well fortified; she can withstand a long siege.'

Balthier nodded, he had had much time to ponder Jules' veiled warnings and ill tidings and had come to a number of conclusions while reasoning out the Empire's likely stratagem.

'But in doing so, Nabudis and her army will be unable to aid in the defence of Nalbina should Archadia also invade the city from the Highwaste in a simultaneous attack. Such an attack would force Dalmasca to fight alone, and before you know it, Rabanastre has fallen and Nabradia is besieged without allies.'

Balthier finished off with mocking cheer. It was all so beautifully efficient in its twisted simplicity, so viciously Archadian.

He was amazed such a ploy would work, but as Hamish himself said, only an Archadian could be so ruthless as to see the sense in it.

Fran had returned and he looked up from his darkening thoughts to find her holding out a handful of odd looking green berries and the hot steaming mug.

' Chew upon the berries and drink this, it will clear your head.' Fran instructed him.

Balthier blinked and suddenly, by being reminded of it, his pounding, aching sinus headache returned.

Trusting Fran not to wish to poison him, he did as bid; though the berries were sour and the hot liquid, which was not water after all, though it held the same consistency, was astringent in taste.

Almost instantly his head felt clearer and his breathing easier. He looked to Fran surprised.

She simply nodded a tiny smile upon her face. 'If you are to take on the might of Empire you will need a clear head.' She pointed out dryly.

Hamish snorted, amused, and levered himself to his feet. 'I need to speak to my people; the tent with the red awning is yours for the night. In the morning we shall speak more.'

Balthier nodded, though Hamish had already departed, and so he turned back to Fran, he needed to begin to explain.

'Fran-'

'I need no explanation.' She interrupted him.

' But -' He blinked surprised.

Fran allowed something close to a real smile to grace her lips. 'The leading man can do no less than play his part in this unfolding drama.'

She rose to her feet and moved towards the tents, he stared after her, astounded. Could it really be so easy? Had he been worried for nothing all this time?

'Fran?'

She turned back to him briefly preparing to duck into the tent they would share, 'I was once Viera, Balthier, always I hear the words you do not say.'

She looked him straight in the eye, something like amusement in her regard. 'Your eyes betray your heart; it is your one saving grace.'

Then she was gone, ducking inside the tent and leaving Balthier alone with the resounding echo of his thundering heartbeat.

For a long time as the camp dispersed and the members of the rebel army went to their own tents, or to join Hamish in private discussion, Balthier simply sat frozen by the dwindling fire.

How could she smile on him and continue to humour, what to her must appear the vain fancies of a fool, with such grace, when he was a liar and a coward and she was anything but?

Balthier wondered with a certain amount of fatalism just how long would it be until she found out the truth and he lost the best thing that had ever happened to him?


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Fifteen: Paradise lost; a portrait of abandoned innocence

A/N: Not everything that was Ffamran's life was bad. This chapter gives a taste of what he could have been, had there been no need for Balthier. Plus I liked Anna and wanted to give her another outing.

* * *

_The climate of the Tchita Lowlands which fell away from Archades to the north of the Tchita Uplands was temperate. It was hot in summer but never too hot and cold in winter but not desperately so. _

_Sobal Shore, which was situated on the coast of the Lowlands and was the favourite destination for the wealthy of Archades to come and enjoy the sun, sea and sand in summer, escaping the stink that rose from Old Archades in a redolent miasma, was beautiful and glittering in the balmy late spring sunshine. _

_Ffamran rolled over onto his side and idly dragged his finger through the hot, dry sand sketching a vague interconnecting lattice-work of lines as his thoughts floated away on the sound of the surf. _

_Though he had absolutely no reason to be, he was, at least for the moment, at peace. _

_A shadow fell over his doodle in the sand bringing with it the scent of frozen sugar ices and brandy-dipped plums._

'What are you drawing?'

_Anna settled herself down on the other side of his design and studied it thoughtfully, after first arranging her purchases down on the picnic blanket stetched out across the sand. _

'Hmm?' _Ffamran roused himself from his sun-baked reverie and gratefully received the bowl of sugar ice, citrus __flavour, that__ she had bought for him._

'Oh, this?' _As Ffamran looked down on the diagram he had subconsciously sketched he realised what it was and hastily wiped away the incriminating evidence of his wandering attention._

'Nothing at all, just lines in the sand.'

_Anna studied him curiously for a moment then smiled around a spoonful of her star fruit flavoured sugar ice._

'I am so glad you agreed to come out today Ffamran. It seems an age since I saw you last.'

_Ffamran blinked, it had been a week. One week and a day to be precise, but he was not in the mood to be either pedantic or rude and so simply smiled back faintly. _

_He really shouldn't be here at __all,__ tomorrow was the day he was supposed to seek out Raz the Bangaa pirate aboard the ship with the red sails. That is if he was really prepared to go through with his plan. _

_Ffamran was no longer sure he was and his inner voice, the voice of his mirror self, had been oddly silent within the chambers of his mind, leaving him to drown in a riptide of indecision alone and unaided. _

'I brought a sketch pad.'

_Anna wrenched him from his thoughts and he looked over to her as the girl dug about in the large canvas bag she had brought with her, the bag somehow having the miraculous ability to carry more inside it than seemed physically feasible for its size. Triumphantly she brandished a plain pad of loose, blank pages._

'You used to enjoy sketching all those pretty airship designs when we were in Akademy. I thought you might wish to draw something now?'

_Ffamran took the offered pad warily, trying to ignore the odd flair of excitement in Anna's green eyes. _

_He remembered the drawings she spoke of. He had spent the dull periods within classes drawing, when he had finished the exercise the tutors had set before the rest of the class, and had nothing to do with his time but give form to his imagination._

_He had drawn airship after airship and then, when the possibilities had seemingly been exhausted, he had re-designed the Archades sky-cabs, all the while imagining his future as an aeronautics designer at Draklor and all the beautiful airships he would design and build. _

_When his father had informed him that he must enter the Judiciary, Ffamran had stopped drawing. There was no longer any point. Nothing he saw in his mind's eye would ever see life; his designs would ever more remain buried in quill lines on crumpled paper. _

'I think I have lost the knack of it.'

_He attempted a wane smile as he set the pad down over the creased sand that he had un-wittingly sketched a floor-plan of the Judiciary buildings holding cells onto. _

_He watched Anna's smile fade and an unusual tautness took hold over her habitually active mouth, her eyes looked down into her melting bowl of sugar ice and she nodded sadly._

'Yes, it was a silly idea. I shouldn't have brought it up.'

_She reached for the pad intent on shoving it back into her canvas bag; Ffamran caught her hurried hands before he knew what he was thinking. _

' No, no.' _He smiled at her, sitting up and taking the pad from her, flipping it open and reaching for the stylus she had also pulled from the bag. _

'I have grown bored of sketching airships that is all. I have lost my inspiration, but I think I have something else much more appealing to sketch.'

_Anna, who had looked quite __crestfallen__ now looked considerably happier. _'What would that be?'

_Ffamran grinned, _'Guess.'

_He made the first few faint lines upon the pad, swift, sure and incisive as Anna bit her lip on a unladylike grin of her own, sat up demurely straight in such a way that could not help but emphasise her long neck and the soft curve of her breasts, and made a delicate show of looking around the lightly populated beach._

' Oh, perhaps it is that fishing schooner with the all the colourful bunting?'

_Anna pointed to the vessel in question with theatrical elegance, extending her arm and rolling her wrist with almost regal precision. Ffamran grinned wider as his sketch took life under his confident pen strokes._

'No. Look further in-land.' _He encouraged her, watching her furtive little smile as she let her eyes wander while keeping her head unnaturally still and posture portrait perfect. _

' The Sugar Ice vendors, cart?' _She queried innocently. He raised an eyebrow at her ironically._

'I would hardly call an old man pushing an equally ancient cart inspiring.' _He drawled; hands dancing over the pad as a face took shape across the page. _

' Well, then you must give me a clue. Or I shall be looking in vain all afternoon.'

_Anna tried out a dainty little pout and sighed dramatically in such a way that meant that Ffamran's eye was drawn, almost involuntarily, to the rise and fall of her chest and the distinct plunge of her neckline as she breathed. _

_Vaguely he wondered if Judge Magister Zaagabaath knew how his daughter chose to dress on a public __beach?__ Somehow Ffamran rather doubted the stern old Judge would approve. _

'Hmmm, a clue, you say? Well...' _He finished off the rough outline of her face and moved onto the graceful line of her neck as it sloped into her narrow shoulders and the soft mounds of her breasts. _

' It is a person.' _He offered._

' Oh, really?' _Anna could barely keep her demure, ladylike smile from broadening into a less delicate, but more honest, grin._

'A man or woman?'

'A woman.' _He supplied. _

_He began work on her hair, flowing loose today in windblown curls, which she was forced to keep trying to push behind her ears as tendrils of hair stroked across her face. _

' A woman you say, anyone I know?'

_Ffamran took care to add her freckles. The sweet little trail of freckles that she usually tried to hide under paling face powder, but which today she had not tried to conceal._

_He liked her freckles; he had never understood or favoured the fashion of Archadian woman to make their faces as white and flawless as unadorned marble, and usually just as unfeeling. _

'Perhaps.' _He murmured, most of his concentration taken in putting in the shading of sunlight and shadow that contoured her features. _

'Is she fair, this woman?'

_Anna fished slyly for compliment as he added texture to his drawing with cross hatched shading and watched her whimsical smile take life upon his page. _

'Of reasonable complexion, I would say.' _He replied blandly and smiled when Anna frowned a little._

'Reasonable? Well that is hardly any endorsement at all.' _She sniffed._

_Ffamran chuckled, _'Ah, but she has lovely eyes. And the eyes are the window to the soul, or so I have heard it said.'

_He purred, concentrating on bringing a little of her sparkle into the eyes of his sketch. _

'Really?'

_There was no teasing in her voice now. Anna's cheeks had flared rose and she looked quite caught between delight and some other emotion he didn't really have a name for._

'Do you truly think my eyes are lovely, Ffamran?'

'Hmm?'

_He cocked his head to the side, the sketch complete and a playful smile twitching across his lips. He laid the pad down on the sand between them and the stylus on top._

'Oh, I'm sorry did you think I was referring to you?'

_Anna's eyes widened and her cheeks flamed vermillion red. _'Who else would you be drawing?' _She gasped._

_Ffamran inclined his head towards a grey haired middle aged woman of matronly proportions who sat upon the sands not far from them, watching a trio of children frolic in the lapping surf. _

' The madame over yonder, she has a refinement of bearing I find quite admirable in a lady of her years.'

_He didn't know why he teased Anna except that the fast, furious play of emotion across her face proved ample distraction from the maelstrom of his thoughts under the surface of this happy, sun drenched afternoon. He wanted to hold onto this moment, as he somehow knew that he would never have another like it. _

_Whatever he chose to do come the morrow, even if he remained in Archades and allowed the Empire to make him another weapon to wield against her enemies, even if he had a hundred summers exactly like this one in his future; he would never recapture this perfect moment on the precipice of decision. _

'Ffamran!'

_Anna exclaimed caught between the impulse to laugh and beat him around the head with her canvas bag. Her eyes alighted on the sketch pad and she lunged for it, but he was faster and snatched it up to his chest._

'It is common courtesy to ask before one goes pawing through another's private etchings.'

_He chided rolling over on his other side taking the sketch pad with him, forcing Anna to lean over his body to grab for the pad. _

'Let me see!' _Anna poked at him with her sharp fingernails, digging for his ribs, unprotected as he wore only his white shirt on the beach and not his vest and jacket._

_Ffamran wriggled away from her unable to use his arms to bat her away as he maintained his grip on the pad._

'Ask nicely and maybe I shall let you see.'

_He rolled onto his back; sketch pad clasped against his chest and looked up at Anna as she knelt above him, pouting deliciously._

'Please may I see your drawing, Ffamran?' _She cooed with saccharine insincerity even as she glared daggers at him._

'Hmm, let me see...no. I don't think you can see the drawing.' He smirked at her look of surprised annoyance.

'Ffamran!'

_Ffamran loosened his grip on the pad just a fraction and was ready when she made an ill-timed grab for it. He jerked the pad above his head, at his arms full extension as she darted down towards his chest where the pad had been seconds before. _

'Oh!'

_Anna exclaimed as she ended up cheek pressed against his chest, over-balanced and collapsed against his body, the sketch pad above her back as Ffamran held it triumphantly aloft._

'Miss Zaagabaath, really, this is hardly proper.'

_He feigned disapproval around his laughter, looking her in the eye from barely a few inches apart. Her brilliant blush brought out her freckles delightfully. _

_With a wordless cry, part exasperation and part play, Anna fought back by setting about tickling him under the arms and stomach and anywhere else on his person that she could reach. _

_Ffamran threw the sketch pad away from them, where it landed with a flutter of pages a few feet away from their picnic blanket, as he needed his arms free to defend himself._

'Stop, stop.' _He yelped kicking at the sand as she mercilessly tickled him, forcing him to curl up in a protective ball. _

'I concede, have mercy already!'

_He choked out amid gasps of laughter and Anna relented at last, a look of triumph on her face as she shoved her hair back._

'I thought Judges were supposed to be adept at resisting all forms of coercion?'

_Anna pointed out archly and poked him playfully in the stomach. Ffamran rolled his eyes. Not even mention of the Judgehood could sour his mood. _

'True, but I never claimed to be a very good Judge. In fact I aim for the exact opposite.'

_It was Anna's turn to roll her eyes at him then she turned her head, searching out the sketch pad. Finding it with her gaze she moved, preparing to fetch it. Ffamran reacted faster._

_Grabbing her wrist he tugged her forward against him again and rolled so that he had her pinned underneath him against the sand. She looked up at him surprised, startled and wide-eyed._

_For a moment they simply stared at one another, faces inches apart, the heat of the glorious sun, __a penetrating__ warmth across Ffamran's back, he was acutely aware, suddenly, of Anna's body warm and breathless underneath him. _

'Ah-ah,' _He wagged a finger at her, smirking as he slowly let her up. _'I haven't given you permission to look yet.'

_His tone was playful even though his throat was suddenly dry and his heart was tripping rapidly inside the cradle of his chest. _

_Anna was also breathing rather unevenly, she bit her bottom lip, and Ffamran __was__ enthralled by the motion._

' I have already asked nicely, what else do you want?'

_Ffamran was remembering the kiss they had shared over a week ago, as he stared momentarily transfixed by her white little teeth nibbling at her lip. _

Well Ffamran the lady is waiting_, his other self whispered, rising from deep inside his thoughts, voice sly and knowing, _aren't you going to tell her what we really want?

_Ffamran opened his mouth very possibly to tell his shadow self to go away but instead that other self stole his vocal cords and he heard himself speak the words he might think but never, ever, __be__ so bold as to say._

'A kiss perhaps?' _His other self inveigled control of Ffamran's body and leaned forward on one elbow towards Anna, who still reclined against the sand. _

'One little kiss for one little sneak peak at my _private _etchings?'

_Ffamran watched from some distant part of his hindbrain as his nameless other self idly, and with nonchalant lack of concern for the impropriety, tickled his fingers lazily over the shoulder strap of Anna's summer dress. _

_Anna was breathing so fast one might have thought she had been running, this had a dramatic and much appreciated effect upon her often, but secretly, admired cleavage. _

_Ffamran could feel his smirk deepening as stray thoughts usually pushed to the dark corners of his dreams came to the fore. His other self revelling in the secret day-dreams and desires Ffamran had been raised to view as inappropriate and had duly suppressed._

_He leaned down towards Anna and she stared up at him stricken, but the brilliant light in her eyes and the flick of the pink tip of her tongue, dancing over her bottom lip, told Ffamran's hidden self all he needed to know. _

_His nameless self, his would be successor, leaned down for the kiss that should be Ffamran's and Ffamran was right there with him, a passive participant within his body, a spectator watching his life and his choices slowly taken from him. _

_As the kiss became something more than a kiss and the sketch pad that had proved the catalyst for it all was summarily forgotten, Ffamran, from the quiet corner of his own mind where he watched but did not feel, found himself pondering a simple, terrifying question._

_He had been worrying over his choices, whether or not to throw his life and heritage away and fly far, far from Archades as if he still had the power of free will. _

_Now he was left to wonder, had the choice already been made? Was not every day forward in time one day less that Ffamran had left to him? _

_Could Ffamran halt the engines of change he had already set in motion? Did he have the strength to suppress his mirror self much longer, or in acknowledging the person who lurked behind his thoughts, his frustrated dreams, had he essentially signed his own death warrant? _

_Even as some part of him flailed in anguish deep inside for the loss of his choices, his freedom to simply _be_, Ffamran knew that everything he held dear and close to him now was merely a memory not yet enshrined in a mind that was less and less his own with every waking moment. _


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Sixteen: Partnership in silence; the eye of the storm

Fran was correct, as usual, and it did rain through most of the night. The sound of the thick splattering rain drops on the waxed canvas of the tent kept Balthier from sleep, as did the futile spinning of his mind.

Rolling over to face Fran, who should have been lying half a foot across from him in the small tent, Balthier's heart almost went into arrhythmia when he found her sleeping mat deserted and not one errant thread of silver hair to prove Fran had ever been in the tent with him.

Struggling into a sitting position inside his sleeping roll Balthier found his pulse resuming a slightly more normal beat when he saw the unmistakable silhouette of a tall, svelte, long eared woman move past the tent, illuminated by the moon.

He waited to see if she would return to the tent and when instead her shadow retreated until lost to his sights he unzipped the sleeping bag and clambered out of the tent to follow her, knowing all the while that he was behaving like a love sick puppy trailing an indifferent master, but not prepared to uphold his pride at the risk of losing Fran.

Wrapping the sleeping bag around his shoulders against the rain he followed the small puncture marks in the soggy ground that her twin heeled shoes had left.

When he found her Fran was sitting quietly on a high perched rock, her feet and calves submerged in the water of one of the rock carved fountains twinned in weeds and vines that littered the Highwaste.

Under the moonlight, still and serene in the rain, her long hair weighed down by the moisture in the air and flowing loose, Fran appeared suddenly small and delicate to him, which she certainly had never done before.

Her face was downturned and he watched for a moment her long, suede ears twitch with more movement and animation than he had witness before.

Though as a Hume he was not accustomed to attributing emotional signals and portents to the movements of ears, Balthier realised that in Fran such little twitches rarely boded well.

Balthier hesitated, not sure what to do next. Had Fran been a Hume he might well have made his presence known to her and asked her what was wrong, but then again, had she been Hume he likely would not have cared.

In the end he decided to turn his back on the sad and poignant scene altogether, deciding that intruding on Fran would only benefit his own curiosity and do nothing to ease whatever ailed her, and so, he left her to her solitude.

Back inside the tent he lay in a quandary regarding the rightness of his decision for some unspecified period of time measured only by the persistent pitter-patter of rain upon the canvas tent, and still Fran did not return.

Unable to stand it a moment longer he left the tent again, gathering up his waterproof coat, taken with him from the Strahl because he had some understanding of the changeable weather fronts of the Highwaste, after all.

Fran was in exactly the same position as he had left her, unmoved and unmoving like a statue, but considerably wetter by now. He knew Fran did not enjoy being wet, especially when the rain got into her ears, and so her insistence on sitting motionless in the downpour concerned him.

Not bothering to conceal his approach as he walked up to her, she had more than likely heard him long hence, he came up behind her and carefully draped his waterproof, richly lined, coat over her shoulders, helpfully lifting the trails of her hair off her back and savouring the feel of the rain slicked tresses as he did so.

All the while Fran did not so much as quiver at his touch. Fran did not enjoy unsolicited physical contact and rarely solicited any either, but despite this he was not sure she even blinked when he touched her.

Without a word, because if Fran wanted to sit in the rain in the middle of the night staring at nothing that was her prerogative, Balthier turned back towards the encampment, feeling slightly better that he had done something, albeit a small thing, to ease her this night.

He crawled back into the tent and spent another uncomfortable and unknowable amount of time staring blankly up at the roof of the canvas tent, picturing Fran, still and statuesque, by the fountain.

With a growl of wordless frustration Balthier rose once more and, hopefully for the final time this night, left the tent again.

He went about detaching the outer canopy of the tent, which was waxed and waterproofed, from the tents inner lining. He gathered up the canopy in a roll that he slung over his shoulder, picked up a few sturdy logs that had been destined for firewood and returned to the fountain and Fran.

As Fran sat motionless and distant Balthier busied himself erecting a makeshift rain shelter around her, using the tent canopy and the sticks as best he could, and relying on his mechanics ingenuity to make the whole rickety construct stay upright.

If Fran desired to stare emptily and dismally into a void of her own imagining all night long that was certainly her prerogative and he would do not one thing to interfere with her.

However he would be damned if he would let her catch her death in the rain, it was bad enough she insisted on keeping her legs, up to mid-calf, in the waters of the fountain.

There was nothing he could, or was prepared to do, about that though. It would be a braver man than he to risk touching those long, powerful legs even when Fran appeared as petrified in stone.

Tired from his exertions Balthier sat down on the ground by her side, nestling close to the fountains rocky base to stay as much under the shelter as he could.

Resting his head against the water worn side of the fountain he closed his eyes and hoped to fall asleep, feeling better in his soul now he was near Fran, even if she herself, at least in spirit, was somewhere far, far away.

Because he was sitting at her feet and with his back to her, Balthier did not see the change that occurred in Fran, who had indeed been very, very far away in mind and soul, caught out of her usual stoic pragmatism by the faintest whisper from the Green Way that had reached her dulled ears sometime earlier that night.

Balthier did not see, curled up as he was muttering sleepily about the wet and the rain, scowling in half-slumber, the smile that arced across Fran's features as she came back to herself to discover a warm coat, smelling of her partner, slung about her shoulders and a canopy erected over her head like a queen's cloth of state.

Balthier was stirred out of, and then gentled back into, his drifting half dream state by the tickle of long clawed nails over his cheek and sideburn, trailing up into his hair line.

Smooth skin, with a texture like lacquered silk, brushed his cheek and Balthier, his mind bobbing and diving on the surface of a deep sleep, tried to wake up sensing that something unusual was occurring and may require some comment or attention on his part.

He stirred as he felt his sleep numbed body being repositioned, coaxed gently out of his hunched up sitting position to lie on the ground, but the deft weight of the pads of fingertips against his eyelids encouraged him against such actions as opening his eyes and reclaiming consciousness.

The last thing he was even vaguely aware of, before he was completely swept away by sleep's labours, was his own hand moving in somnambulant wanderings over the lace curtain that covered Fran's mid-rift, his fingers seeking the smooth touch of flesh underneath.

The feeling of being held and the warmth of another (decidedly female) body beside him as he slept was unusual enough to almost jar him awake (ladies man he may claim to be but even when a life of exciting criminality provided an opportunity for wooing he had no time, or usually the inclination, to linger long after the climax of the event.) but he was so deliciously comfortably, despite the wet grass underneath him and the monotonous pounding of the rain, that he did not bother stirring.

That night his dreams were light and inconsequential and did not return in dark snatches to bother him in the morning; he woke feeling well rested, despite sleeping on the naked soil and only catching a few unbroken hours of slumber.

He and Fran both rose to the pre-dawn quickening of day and because Fran moved with deliberate and alert movements from the instant she woke and Balthier usually required the best part of fifteen minutes to feel fully conscious, let alone alert, he did not question her about her strange melancholy of the night before or the half remembered closeness they had shared as they slept.

What he could not know and in truth had not thought to ask, was that Fran too had enjoyed the first truly refreshing sleep, free of the unbroken silence that haunted her always dreamless slumber, she had experienced in years.

Balthier, mind already debating his next course of action, as he and Fran dismantled the shelter he had made the night before and returned to the encampment before Hamish and his cohorts awoke to notice their absence, thought no more of the previous night's strangeness.

He was contemplating using the seventy thousand Gil to purchase a new paint job for the Strahl while shaving by one of the fountain pools dotting the rebel camp when it happened.

A moment to be enshrined in memory for the rest of his days, though one he would never speak of to anyone.

Looking down into the reflective surface of the pool, Balthier was washing off the excess foam, having finished shaving to his satisfaction; the puffy white clouds floating languidly across the blue sky reflected on the water's surface.

Then suddenly, as if momentary blinded by an almighty flash of sheet lightening the sky reflected in the water of the pool went white, a milky, pearlescent white.

Under his knees the ground seemed to buck as if he stood at the centre of a seismic fault line and a tremendous roaring sound, as though the mountains were falling, rent the air.

Balthier leapt to his feet, Sirius to hand, and found himself staring into the eyes of Landissian freedom fighters as perplexed and startled as he was. He opened his mouth to pose a question when the screaming started.

He had never heard her scream, but somehow he knew, as he started running instinctively towards the piercing, piteous sound, that it was Fran who screamed.

He found her slumped against the rocky, jagged side of the cliff, one hand curled helplessly in a tangle of vines in a futile attempt to stand.

Her eyes were squeezed shut and her lovely inhume features twisted in a mask of agony. To Balthier's mute horror, he saw, as he shoved gormless Landissians out of the way, tears streak down her face.

Fran shrieked once more and her clawed hands raked down the hard, jagged surface of the rock, tearing her nails until her fingers bleed. Balthier fought with her to pull her hands away as Fran writhed and gasped for air.

'She screams! She screams! The Wood, I can hear her scream. Nabudis! Nabudis has fallen and the Mist devours them all.'

Fran cried shaking convulsively, before suddenly, her eyes, tight shut all this time, snapped open and red, wild eyes fixed Balthier with a stare as coldly furious and ancient as the mountains of Kerwon.

'Humes! Humes did this! Kill the land, burn it in Mist. Destroy yourselves you do! Filthy, evil Humes.'

'Fran please, calm yourself.' He gripped her wrists, trying not to show how much she was scaring him as around them members of Hamish's army ran hither and thither. One of the army members ran into the clearing from the direction of Salikawood.

'The Salikawood! There is a stampede of fiends leaving Salikawood, like they flee from something monstrous. Mist pours from Salika from the direction of Nabudis and smoke fills the air. Captain what do we do?'

The lookout sounded terrified but whatever Balthier might think about the people of Landis he had never had cause to doubt their bravery. A shiver of pure fear stroked down the vertebrae of his spine at the thought of what could have happened to do this to Fran and turn the sky above their heads white as Mist.

'It burns, it burns!' Fran murmured, trembling violently as he gripped her wrists. 'My ears ring. The Green Way is sundered. The Wood screams. Nabudis is fallen. The Mist consumes all.'

And then with the narrowed eyed fury of a fiend or other wild thing Fran jerked her wrists from his grip and shoved him away from her with the strength of the deranged, managing to pierce his skin with her claws as she did so.

'Fran!'

He leapt instantly to his feet and prepared to run after her as she sprinted towards the winding paths of the Mosphoran Highwaste, quickly lost to his sight.

Hamish caught his arm as Balthier made to dart around him. 'Leave her be Ffamran, we have to get to your ship and make for Nabudis.'

Balthier jerked his arm out of Hamish's grip, 'No, I have to go after Fran.'

But Hamish would not be brushed off so lightly he caught Balthier by the snow white bib of his brown suede leather vest and glared fiercely into his eyes.

'Your Viera can take care of herself. You heard what Antares said, there's been an attack on Nabudis! The Salikawood is thick with Mist enough even the fiends are running from it. We need an airship and a pilot to get us to Nabudis fast.'

'Fran...'

Balthier protested sounding more like Ffamran than the man he tried to be. There was no sign of Fran and he lacked the skills to track her along the circuitous pathways of the Highwaste.

She was gone and the feeling of fluttering panic under his breastbone had more to do with her absence then the fate of Nabudis.

Lips pursed in a thin line, for whatever else he was Balthier was a pragmatic man, he pulled himself calmly out of Hamish's grip, brushed himself off fastidiously and nodded.

'The Strahl is docked in Nalbina. Is there a faster way to get there than the route your guide took us yesterday?'

Balthier had suspected that Guido was leading them, figuratively, up the garden path the day before so that they would have trouble finding the encampment again on their own, or, more to the point, with a contingent of Imperial soldiers.

'Aye there is. Let's go.'

So they did. Balthier spared a glance to the narrow passageway through two rocks that Fran and fled through, wretchedly, knowing in his soul that he would likely never see her again.

What was done, was done; the rule he lived by. A man cannot change his past, nor correct his mistakes once made, only escape the former and learn from the latter. He had always known that one day he would lose her anyway.

So following Hamish and a handful of his best fighters, he hurried along the secret pathways of the Highwaste to retrieve the Strahl. Nabudis awaited; he could not fathom what had caused such chaos, what attack the Empire could have launched to truly bring down Nabudis and didn't waste time pondering it, soon enough he would see for himself.

Had Balthier been blessed with the gift of foresight, he would have run, as Fran had done, in entirely the opposite direction so that he never need see the fall of Nabudis for himself.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Seventeen: Destined for Infamy

_Ffamran ladled another slab of marmalade onto his toast and bit into the slice of bread absently. Across the table from him Cid sat perusing the daily broadsheet newspaper and chewing thoughtfully on a breakfast muffin. _

_Once upon a time this had been a regular occurrence; the two of them breakfasting together. Ffamran remembered the mornings when, as a little child, he would carry his plate of toast and jam and his glass of milk (all he would eat for breakfast, Ffamran had always had small appetite) and crawl into his father's lap so that they could read the paper together. _

_After his father went stark raving mad and Ffamran spent most mornings in gruelling Judicial physical training (though why he needed to run twenty laps, perform forty sit-ups and swim fifty metres in a pool simply to spend most of his days performing tasks no more physically demanding than filling out paperwork was beyond him.) the morning breakfasts had ceased. _

_Had Ffamran not been on tenterhooks for the other, lunatic, shoe to drop, he would have enjoyed this moment of familial closeness with his father. _

'I am to luncheon with Lord Vayne today, son.'

_Cid informed him distractedly, not bothering to look up from his paper. Ffamran, who had an aeronautical publication spread out by his place setting, looked up from flicking a page over. _

'That's nice father.'

_He replied for lack of anything better to say. Though Ffamran had never had the dubious honour bestowed upon him of meeting the Emperor's eldest surviving son in person, he had heard enough about Vayne Solidor to be considerably wary of the man five years his senior. _

_Anyone who orchestrated the murder of two of his brothers was not someone Ffamran was in a hurry to make the acquaintance of. _

'I would like you to attend also.' _Cid finally deigned to look up and was therefore able to see his son, who had been sipping from his glass of milk, choke and splutter at his words. _

'What?'

_Ffamran, who could not have been more surprised if Cid had announced he would like Ffamran to dress as a Chocobo so that he may ride him up to the palace (less in fact because that would at least be a request in keeping with lunacy) could not fathom his father's reasoning. _

_Scrabbling to gather his wits as his father's brows drew together in a frown that spoke of suspicion more than annoyance; Ffamran could not afford his father to take an interest in his affairs right now, Ffamran cobbled together a weak excuse._

'I doubt I would be of any use to you father.' _He stammered._

_Cid, seemingly segueing into a non-sequitur that immediately raised his son's suspicions, Ffamran had some small understanding of his father's circuitous thought processes, after all, spoke once more._

'I have received your mid-year work assessment from Zaagabaath.'

'Oh?' _Ffamran croaked weakly. _

'Indeed. I am concerned. You are not applying yourself to the best of your abilities. You must do better, Ffamran.'

_Cid frowned, not angry but perplexed, as if he could not fathom why the fruit of his loins would do anything but excel when it was in Cid's interests for him to do so. _

_Ffamran could almost hear his father's thoughts, as the man pondered his son's failings with the scientific and analytical mind that he had bequeathed his son also. _

_Was it simply a matter of maturity, or lack thereof? Or perhaps Ffamran was not eating enough? Or not getting enough exercise; boys need plenty of stimulation and physical exercise, perhaps Ffamran was simply lacking one of these core components and thus was not functioning to optimum efficiency? _

'I would like you to attend my luncheon with Lord Vayne, Ffamran. I think it will be good for you. You need to understand your place in society and how your labours benefit our great nation.'

_Ffamran realised he was grinding his teeth and stopped. He resisted the urge to laugh, Cid was not a harsh man, nor draconian in his parenting skills and it had been years since he had raised a hand against his son, but under the circumstances Ffamran did not wish to risk it. _

'I cannot do that father.' _Ffamran waited, muscles tensed for his father's reaction. _

_Cid raised one eyebrow enquiringly, brown eyes sharp and curious. Under that cool, analytical scrutiny Ffamran would almost have welcomed the return of Cid's imaginary friend to take the attention off him. _

'Cannot? What do you mean, cannot? Of course you can. You are not on Judicial duty today, what could be more important than a meeting with your future Emperor?'

_Cid demanded; his voice level and collected, an intense curiosity infusing his words more than any anguish. Ffamran knew however that in Cidolfus Demen Bunansa, curiosity was much more dangerous than anger. _

_Ffamran whose eyes had widened at the last part of Cid's statement, Vayne's succeeding his father was no sure thing, it must be approved by the Senate and the Senate loathed him, found himself at a loss for words under his father's penetrating stare._

'I have a prior engagement.' _Ffamran heard himself say, almost fatuously, and recognised his inner usurper, his other self, in the dismissive finality explicit in the words spoken. _

_A strange smile played over Cid's lips and Ffamran knew it to be the first signs of anger in his father and wished he could stop his other self from hijacking the use of his vocal cords. _

'Indeed?' _Cid almost laughed, _'Well, my boy, you shall just have to cancel it. This engagement carries more weight than any assignation with a Magister's daughter.'

_He crowed jovially and Ffamran for a moment wondered what he meant, then realised with a shock he referred to Anna._

_Ffamran did not waste time wondering how his father knew about that, he suspected most people did, Anna Zaagabaath was not one to keep anything to herself longer than she had too, after all. _

'I don't mean Anna.' _Ffamran heard himself drawl in disinterested rebuff to his father, who had clearly expected him to be embarrassed into submission. _

_Cid raised both eyebrows this time and the smile, that dangerous, misleading smile, continued to play about his lips. _

'Then please enlighten me, Ffamran, clearly you have been leading a busy life of late.'

_Ffamran could have laughed at that and his other self did just that, the sound oddly harsh and mocking. _

'You'd be amazed old man.'

_Ffamran, who felt as though he was having some form of out of body experience, was as stunned as Cid by the tone his other self took with their father, the sheer defiance in that one short, derisive sentence. _

_Cid sat back in his chair, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, _'Ffamran, are you quite well son?'

_Ffamran rose from his chair and walked with nonchalant confidence towards his father resting a hand on his father's shoulder. _

_For a moment he relished the feeling of being close to the only being he had ever worshipped, the only family he had ever known, and the man he had sacrificed his dreams for. _

'I'm sorry father.' _Despite the words he spoke there was little contrition in his tone, instead Ffamran's voice was cold, crisp and strong; a stranger's voice. _

'I guess I have ended up something of a failure to you, haven't I? And after all the work you put in. All the extra tutorials, the private tutors, the hours of studying, all of it and still you're not satisfied with me. I haven't ever quite been good enough have I?'

_The hand resting on his father's shoulder trembled as Ffamran felt just the tip of the iceberg of hurt and failure that had formed inside him as all his fears, the doubts that had plagued him since his father's return from the Jagd Dafor, scraped against his heart, slicing it open. _

_Ffamran looked down into his father's quizzical, frowning eyes and asked the simple question that had eaten away at him for over a year. _

'I tried though, father, I gave you everything I had, but did you? Did you try? Or did you give up on me years ago?'

_There was no answer, Cid merely frowned, surprised and displeased, up at Ffamran, but he supposed that was answer enough wasn't it? _

_Ffamran turned away from his father, vowing to himself that this would be the last time he failed the man. The last time he endured his father's quizzical, bemused disappointment._

'Goodbye father, enjoy your luncheon with Lord Vayne.'

_Ffamran walked out of the dining room, out of the house on Grosvenor Square in Highgarden Terrace. He left without a backward glance even as he heard his father calling after him. _

_There was a strange surety in his step as he made his way to Nilbasse and from there he caught a sky cab to the shipping yard where he was unsurprised to find Jules loitering with intent by a collection of wooden barrels._

'A'ight _Master _Ffamran?' _The neophyte street ear greeted him with irritating cheer, the greasy haired youth clearly eager to meet the pirates on the ship with red sails, as per Raz's instructions. _

_Ffamran couldn't bring himself to reply with anything more than a scowl as he looked over the busy dock, gulls squawking and fighting each other over the carcasses of fish, for the _Syren_, the ship with the red sails._

_There was only one ship in the entire harbour with blood red sails. A magnificent galleon made of blackened wood and gilded in gold. Ffamran shared a look with Jules who merely shrugged, for once the vulgar was as in the dark as Ffamran. _

_There was nothing for it but to approach the ship and see what happened. After his altercation with his father, Ffamran felt more at peace with his decision, there was nothing left for him in Archades. _

'What do you want?'

_A heavily muscled shaven headed man, whose skin colouring had been enhanced by the introduction of numerous ink dyed tattoo's depicting buxom women in various states of undress, anchors and the sorts of things one might expect to see on lowborn sailors skin, stopped them as they approached the gangplank of the Syren. _

' We were told to meet a...' _Ffamran internalised a reluctant sigh and forced the words out, _'...a friend by the name of Raz on this ship.'

_The large man sneered at them, looking both Ffamran and Jules up and down and letting it be clear in his expression exactly what he thought of the pair of them._

'You ain't got no friends on this here ship, boy.'

_Ffamran didn't know what he intended to say in response to this, but thankfully (or perhaps not) he was saved from having to find out by Jules, who decided to enter into the conversation._

'Y'sure? See, our friend's kind o' hard to miss. He's Bangaa, 'bout this high..' _Jules gestured at about knee height and Ffamran closed his eyes in despair._

'Shut up, before you make even more of a fool of yourself, than you naturally are.' _Ffamran snapped._

_Jules turned to him ready to fire off a snide retort when a rolling, contralto velvet laugh stopped both boys in their verbal tracks. As one they turned to look up at the gangplank to the woman who had just appeared._

'Yes, indeed, Master Jules, I would listen to your fine looking friend, before you irrevocably ruin your reputation.'

_The woman, who appeared to be in her middle thirties wore thigh high leather boots, festooned with silver buckles, a man's tailed coat, like the ones Ffamran's father wore, with a stiff white lace collar and ruff, black satin gloves on her hands and a tricorn hat on her head, but precious little else._

'Gods above.'

_Jules almost groaned as he watched slack jawed as the woman, who was not beautiful, but carried herself with the ease and poise of a Tchita serpent, all but slithered down the gangplank towards them. _

_Tearing his eyes away from the woman's attire (or lack thereof) Ffamran noticed the bull-whip coiled in one of the woman's hands and wished he'd had the sense to come armed for this meeting. _

_To Jules the woman advancing on them was every lewd imagining he'd ever had made flesh, a dark fantasy any adolescent boy would long for. To Ffamran, who had spent too much time studying and dreaming of airships to have altogether that many lewd fantasies, the woman was a revelation, and not an altogether good one. _

_He was less than thrilled when the woman sidled over to him and, quick as a darting serpent, reached out a satin gloved hand to caress his cheek. Ffamran reared back, in unconcealed surprise and fright, the woman laughed, an almost purring sound, at once erotic and unnerving._

'And you must be Master Ffamran. I can see the mark of Bunansa in your features; Cid's features.'

_A cat like smile split the woman's face, predatory and teasing, Jules was almost salivating where he stood watching. Ffamran could not have moved if he had wanted to, and affected by a stirring of desire he had not often been troubled with, he did not think he wanted to. _

_Clearing his throat awkwardly and falling back on the good manners that had been drilled into him as a child Ffamran shook himself out of his almost stupefied trance._

'I don't think we have ever met, madam, how is it you know my name, and my father?'

_The woman's keen, dark gimlet eyes sparkled with a dark sort of delight, _'How adorable. But I think there is something altogether darker lurking inside you, Ffamran Mid Bunansa, than ever was in your father; a touch of infamy, perhaps?'

_She turned away in a swish of coat tails and sauntered back up the gangplank, both boys unable to tear their gazes away from the beautiful sashay of her__ pert __rear end__ as she ascended onto the deck of the ship, before turning back to look down on them._

'Chop, chop boys, we don't have all day.' _She laughed as Jules all but raced up the gangplank and Ffamran followed, somewhat more cautiously, realising that he still had no idea who she was._

_As if sensing his unease, the woman's rouged lips spread in a wicked grin, dark glittering eyes burning with something almost anticipatory as she looked at Ffamran. Ffamran could feel himself growing hot in the face under her scrutiny. _

'Welcome aboard the Syren, boys; my name is Ruthy and I'm the captain. On this ship I am god of all I survey. While you are on this ship, you two are mine to do with as I wish.'

_Ffamran twitched in alarm and immediately looked over to where two of the burly ship's crew where drawing up the gangplank, effectively barring his leaving the ship. Ffamran turned sharply towards Ruthy only to find her right in front of him._

_She slipped an arm about his shoulders and whispered in his ear, her lips tickling his skin, her words dripping like sweetened poison into his mind, his soul._

_'_You wanted to escape, didn't you? The highborn child who didn't like his place and wanted to change it? Well, congratulations, here you are! I shall enjoy stripping away all you were and making you into something thoroughly wicked.'

_Then she slipped away from him, leaving Ffamran frozen in a quandary of muddled desire and panic. Had he had control of his faculties at that moment he would have thrown himself overboard to escape her and the dark, explicit promise in her words. _

_Ruthy strolled towards the door to the captain's cabin, _'Come along boys, your little friend is waiting for you, and I know Remus is dying to meet you.'

_She turned her head back to fix mysterious, dark, twisted eyes on Ffamran as she spoke those last words. _

_Ffamran, the confidence he had been feeling less than a hour before evaporating with every step, had the feeling that with every hesitant, reluctant step he took he walked towards a destiny, a life, he would never be able to escape._

_With a certainty that defied logic or explanation Ffamran knew that although he entered Ruthy's cabin Ffamran Mid Bunansa, failed son of Archades greatest genius, the person who left the cabin would be someone else entirely. _


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Eighteen: Nabudis is burning and we all fall down

_A/N: This is a warning. This chapter deals with the fall of Nabudis as I imagine it and is pretty graphic. This story has a T rating but I do not want to upset anyone reading this, so thought I would post this warning, there is nothing gratuitous but I have tried to capture the horror of the destruction of an entire country._

_

* * *

_Nalbina was in the midst of a full scale panic when Balthier, Hamish, the unpleasant woman who had tried to shoot an arrow through Balthier's heart, named Bethesda, and Guido the dim-witted guide staggered into the town. 

Guido and Bethesda had to lay about the writhing, panicked mass of people surging for the Highwaste and possible escape, or else looting everything not nailed down while the going was good, with the flats of their swords.

Eventually however, swimming against the tides, the group made it to the aerodrome, which was in equal turmoil as every ship docked tried to make unauthorised and hasty exit.

'Master Balthier, this wasn't my fault this time!'

Nono leapt down from a storage crate as Balthier shoved his way towards the docking bay, slammed a fist into the back of the head of a man attempting to steal his ship, almost without conscious thought, and lowered the entry ramp.

'Master Balthier, where is Fran?'

Nono jabbered, as with absent-minded concern for his crewman, Balthier swept the diminutive fluffy bundle of yellow pom-pom plumed Moogle up into his arms like a child and slammed the entrance hatched closed.

Hamish and the other two Landissian freedom fighters were already in the process of buckling themselves into the passenger seats as Balthier deposited Nono into Fran's chair and dropped into his own, starting the engines.

'Nono do the honours.' He said distractedly.

The Moogle was no Fran (obviously) but a relatively knowledgeable second pair of eyes to check the monitors was better than none, especially when flying into hostile unknowns.

' They've sealed the hangar bay roof. How are we to get out?'

Hamish asked from somewhere behind Balthier as around them, muffled by the Strahl's frame and the panic of desperate people, the aerodrome workers yelled over a tanoy system that no vessel was authorised to leave the aerodrome until further notice, by decree of the government of Dalmasca.

Vaguely Balthier noted the fact that Dalmasca had given the decree to batten down the hatches, not Nabradia. This was not completely without merit; Nalbina was a border town between the two sovereignties and was administered jointly by both Nabradia and Dalmasca. Still under the present circumstances it did not bode well for Nabudis.

On the face of it nor did it bode well for Balthier and his passengers, of course the day Balthier obeyed the edicts of any sovereign country was the day that country hung him.

Ignoring all superfluous questions, whose answers were either about to become obvious, or were too painful to be touched upon (namely anything pertaining to Fran) Balthier pulled the lightweight and agile Strahl away from the docking bay clamps and turned her, smoothly, while hovering halfway between the floor and the ceiling, to face the back wall of the aerodrome.

'You are forgetting who taught me how to fly, Hamish. I don't wait for doors to be opened for me. If I need an exit I make my own.'

Balthier said blithely through gritted teeth. After gaining possession of the Strahl from his former mentor and tormentor, Remus, Balthier had stripped the vessel of a great deal of the nasty, vicious paraphernalia and armaments Remus had installed.

Most, but not all.

Balthier had made sure, though he had no intention of every using them against a manned vessel or anything living, that the Strahl's small, stunted front double cannon, carried munitions.

With a few flicked switches he powered up those cannons and held the Strahl hovering steady, with target locked on the back wall of the aerodrome.

'Gods, man, are you mad? You'll get us all killed.' Hamish had clearly realised what his intention was and the born and bred fighting man was not happy.

Balthier, a less than pleasant grin stretched taut over bared teeth, did not look back to him, as he gripped the steering levers, checked the fuel gauges and the glossair wings, performed a few quick acts of mental arithmetic, didn't like the answers and so ignored the mathematical certainties that he was indeed about to get them all killed and pressed the button to fire cannons.

'Fire in the hole!'

He cheered as he threw the Strahl forward following the streaks of light that smashed through the back wall of the Nalbina aerodrome.

Pushing his baby to limits no purely sensible man (who wasn't a sky pirate and who wasn't fighting off increasing anxiety and delayed shock) would, Balthier dropped the Strahl's altitude until the belly of the ship brushed over the smoking rubble on the floor and turned her vertical, wings folded, to squeeze his ship through the hole.

'Gods above, we're not dead?'

Hamish sounded almost bewildered as his two cohorts added their own comments in Landissian quietly and vehemently under their breaths.

Balthier laughed and shoved his ship into a manoeuvre most pilots would not have had either the sheer brilliance (otherwise known as madness) or ability to do and sent the Strahl flying upwards in a punishing arc. The gloss air wings screamed as the Strahl launched into the air from the narrow alley between buildings.

'Ha, there, another perfectly executed take-off.' Balthier exclaimed triumphantly. He glanced automatically and not a little smugly towards Fran, only for his pleasure at his own ingenuity to instantly vanish when, of course, Fran wasn't there.

'Ummmm, kupo, kupo, kupo, kupo-po.'

Nono still had his small hands over his large eyes and was muttering the Moogles favourite word almost reverently under his breath as Balthier righted the Strahl's ascent and turned her to face Nabudis.

Balthier could not swallow the sharp inhalation of breath when he saw the huge, thick, almost solid tower of smoke, or Mist, or some such, that rose hundreds of feet into the air, where once would have sat the citadel of Nabudis in the distance.

'Gods save us all.' Hamish breathed, almost rising from his seat, until the safety harness stopped him.

Balthier said nothing, his attention diverted, as was Nono's, from the staggering sight out of the window screen, to the flashing lights and warning bells that began a synchronised concert of alarms within the Strahl's diagnostic array.

As the ambient Mist monitor, the part of the Strahl's systems that measured Mist interference in the atmosphere and warned of areas of jagd, began beeping persistently and with some urgency, the first shudder ran through the Strahl, which immediately began to lose altitude.

'I don't understand, kupo, the monitors say we fly towards Jagd but this passage has never been jagd before?'

Balthier was forced to throw the Strahl into a wide arc towards the south east and the Salikawood before the Strahl's flight once again levelled out and she stopped losing altitude.

'It must be that cloud, though I have never seen anything of it's like before. It looked like a funnel of solid Mist.'

Balthier spoke aloud less in explanation or conversation, than because the surprise and the fear behind those words was too large, too great, to be kept to an internal monologue.

' Aye, you are right. In all my years I have never seen anything of the like. The whole sky is rife with Mist and magick.' Hamish all but growled shaking his head fiercely, the reflection of which Balthier could just see in the Strahl's window screen.

Away from the Mist cloud covering most of southern Nabradia Balthier could see that it was dusk, darkness drawing in. It was amazing how the ethereal, eerie light from the Mist cloud had distorted the light in the sky from Nabudis to the Highwaste, creating an unnatural, painful pearly white luminescence.

What weapon in all Ivalice had the power to do such a thing?

'Ffamran!' Balthier was jolted out of his own thoughts by Hamish's voice and Hamish's heavy hand dropping onto his shoulder as the other man reached over from behind him.

'Hmm?' He turned slightly to face the man, the Strahl hovering stationary, but unhappy, facing towards the Phon Coast and the Archadian Empire to the east, her back to Nalbina and the cloud.

'Can you find us a way around the turbulence? Can you get us to Nabudis? There could be people down there that need help.'

Balthier pursed his lips, both at Hamish' awkwardly gentle, deliberately steady tones, the voice of one talking to a panicked child, and at the realisation that he was behaving very like a child.

'If I skirt the Landis-Nabradia border, head northwards along the border, we might be able to avoid the worst of it. The wind appears to be moving the cloud towards the south-west in any event.'

Balthier said distractedly as he studied the monitors, a quick glance to Nono, tiny and almost doll-like in Fran's chair, and the Moogle nodded his agreement, big opaque black eyes even wider than usual.

It was not easy. Even with Balthier's piloting skills, his almost symbiotic relationship with his ship, wherein he could intuit the Strahl's every judder and waver in the air, the way he recognised his own breathing, it was more wicked luck that kept the ship in the air as he pushed towards the brilliant, iridescent, swirling mass of cloud that covered almost the entirety of the Nabradian Plains.

As he swooped around the cloud from the north of Nabudis, the Strahl's monitors and sensors screaming warning in deafening cacophony and the ship's glossair rings threatening to fail at any given moment, Balthier and the other occupants of the Strahl were able to see what lurked within and below the cloud.

'By all that's holy!'

Bethesda, silent and sullen up until this moment, almost cried out in involuntary horror. Guido, stolid and dim witted, paled and tears prickled his eyes at the sight below him. Hamish swore, long and vehemently.

Balthier could offer no commentary, no utterance eloquent or otherwise to express his horror as the Strahl curved in elegant descent towards the ground.

Nabradia burned. Not just the skeletal husks of buildings, villages and settlements that once dotted the gently undulating, rolling hills of the verdant plains, but the plains themselves.

It was as though the grass lands had become a rippling, golden veldt of flame, beautiful and obscenely terrible all at once. The great lakes that stretched across the landscape and sluiced through the valleys had become channels of liquid fire.

As Balthier struggled to find a safe place to dock the Strahl, which was losing altitude alarmingly, he saw what at first appeared to be odd collections of debris scattering a nearby hillside.

Tiny hillocks and tufts of irregular shape, lumpy and indecipherable to the eye under the painful, glaring luminescence of the unnaturally white sky; as Balthier dropped anchor on the side of the hilltop, so far not ablaze, he realised what those lumps of 'debris' were.

They were animals, the bovine creatures that the Garif of Jahara called Nana's. It looked as if they had died, all together, the entire flock, where they stood. As the Strahl came to a shuddering, whining landing, Balthier had a reason for the creatures' sudden death.

The very air was thick with Mist, clogged with it, so that as he and Hamish and the others departed the ship, leaving Nono inside ostensibly in case they needed to make hasty retreat but in truth because the Moogle was simply safer that way, the Mist cast reflections of the Humes as they stood choking.

The stench of burning death rose on the soot and ash clogged air from the valley below. The Mist was so thick that it made Balthier's head reel and he had a moment to wonder had Fran been here whether the accumulated Mist would have simply stopped her heart.

Balthier shook thoughts of Fran to the furthest reaches of his mind, assuaging his conscience, and the strangled voice of the boy inside his soul, that once they had done what they had to here, Fran would be waiting for him in the Highwaste, fully recovered.

He did not believe his own lies, but even thoughts of Fran faded into insignificance as he joined the Landissians on the crest of the hill and looked down into the Nabudis valley and to the Citadel.

In years to come Balthier would bear witness to a number of impossible, extraordinary sights, he would have a part in the shaping of Ivalice's history, but nothing would ever blunt or lessen the memory of Nabudis.

On the day he would die, in relative peace in his own bed, a lifetime well lived behind him, he would still see the vision of Nabudis burning, emblazoned upon his eyelids.

Balthier could laugh in the face of would-be gods, spit in the eye of destiny and shake hands with Death, but always, ever after this moment, he would know and fear true evil, for he had seen it with his own eyes.

Beside him the Landissian woman Bethesda started to weep, a rough, gasping sobbing that was more a reflex than a sentiment. On her other side Guido, staunch and stolid, staggered from the sight and vomited, profusely, all over his own boots.

Only Hamish and Balthier stood side by side and did not turn away from the horror laid out like a lurid portrait, an illustration of the darkest depths of Hume depravity and carnage, without flinching.

Hamish could look because he had seen the barbarity of Hume kind on many a battlefield when civility fell away and all there was in men's eyes was the savage, mindless need to survive no matter what. Even so, Hamish had never seen, and would never see again, a scene of such naked horror.

Balthier, less than half Hamish' age, just twenty summers old, had no frame of reference for what he saw. He had seen death and been death's instrument but he had never been forced to go to war. Yet, even if he had campaigned with the Imperial army, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw here.

Balthier's imminently logical, practical mind, for all his wild schemes and high dreams, could not comprehend what he saw before him. He had not the words, or the capacity to rationalise what went on below him in what was once the great, shining white citadel of Nabudis.

Muffled and distorted by the white, choking, spark laden blanket of roiling Mist, the screams of the still living floated upwards in disjointed, disembodied fragments.

Balthier saw the people, festering burns weeping from broken, oozing flesh, scrambling with bleeding hands and kicking convulsively with their feet as they clambered over each other, kicked and bit and scratched and bludgeoned their fellows for purchase on the bottom of the slope to the hill he stood atop of.

He watched Nabradian's run through the wynds and complex passageways within the Citadel's courtyards, on fire, setting their kinsmen on fire as they ran blindly into them, screaming as they fell.

He watched, as almost soundlessly, one whole tier of the great, ancient and magnificent citadel collapsed like a house of cards, crushing the dazed, injured and fleeing people below.

Jets of flame, in inconceivably beautiful and horrifying shades of blue and green and violet purple rose many, many feet into the air, as the Mist laden sky erupted and ignited. The Citadel, once thought impregnable, began to fall.

The screams of those trapped within its maze like wynds and alleys, the city within a city as Nabudis had always been known, rose on the up swell of Mist that seemed intent on pervading every square inch of land.

All the world was ablaze before Balthier's eyes as hot specks of ash and soot bit into his skin thrown down upon him like a vicious burning rain.

For as far as the eye could see lay the bodies of the dead. Men, women and children, domestic animals, livestock, even the native fiends; all distinction between them lost. They all eventually began to burn.

Balthier saw one woman, almost halfway up the slope begin to cough blood and writhe upon the grass, choking until she died, only to be roughly pulled and kicked away by others, desperate to get away from the Mist and destruction beneath them.

Then, if that was not enough, to watch the callousness of survival instinct in all its inglorious desperation, Balthier watched mute, stricken, as the woman, undeniably dead rose up, bloody mouth gaping and released an ear-splitting, monstrous keening howl, before setting upon the man who had roughly thrown her body aside.

'Sweet merciful holy light, save us.'

Hamish whispered with utter sincerity as he too saw the dead begin to rise, howling banshee's, spirits maligned and tormented by the Mist that first killed their flesh then infused it with a parody of life, to trap the souls of the fallen in eternal torment.

''Tis the Mist, it corrupts the very land, the air, the blood. They are all infected.'

Bethesda reared up against Hamish's words, the implicit entreaty for retreat and the admission of defeat unspoken but clearly heard.

'No! There are men and women still living, we must do something!'

And without waiting for her captain she began to stumble, half running, half falling down the hillside towards the twisting, writhing mass of Humes trying and failing to climb above the Mist to safety.

'Beth, gods damn it woman, no!'

Hamish yelled after her, but the hardened soldier knew better than to follow, as too did Guido. Balthier also remained where he was, but this was because he no longer remembered how to move. Had he been able to he would have run away long ago.

It was almost, strangely, anti-climatic, that the first body Bethesda should run into would be one of the Banshee; the mournful, vengeful dead that plagued the battlefields of Ivalice but never before had they risen in such number or spontaneity.

The banshee had once been a woman with the flaxen hair common among Hume's of this region, the body, though mutating already, still bore the wounds, the open burns and sores of the Mist poisoning that had killed her.

The Banshee's scream stunned Bethesda and she fell backwards, sliding down the slope of the hillside towards a gathering of undead that rose like limp-stringed marionettes from the grey and blackened wasteland.

Balthier only remembered he still had his Sirius after he fired the first shot. The shot found its target true and one Banshee fell with a bullet to the head.

Balthier, the part of his consciousness that thought of itself in such terms, was not pulling the trigger on his gun, was not calmly and efficiently racking another round into the chamber and sighting down one arm to shoot down one, two, three, half a dozen undead rising from the very soil as Bethesda scrambled back up the slope, it felt as though his body did so without his minds consent.

Inside the confines of his skull, the part of Balthier that was Balthier, screamed and screamed to see what was before him. Even as he continued to calmly and methodically fill the bodies of Nabradians with lead shot; finishing the job of massacring the people of Nabudis that his countrymen had started.

He might have continued to mechanically fire into the mass of undead that sprouted from the dead landscape forever had Bethesda not reached the top of the hillside and threw herself at him, knocking them both to the ground.

'Monster! Monster! You murdering bastard! Look what your people have done. How dare you? How dare you?'

A large woman and trained from adolescence in the arts of war, Bethesda pummelled her fists into Balthier's face, his upper chest, his arms when he raised them reflexively against her assault. Her nails raked over his eyes and his face, but strangely he could not feel a thing.

'Enough, Woman, enough! He just saved your life, Beth, he is not the enemy.'

Hamish threw her off of Balthier and hauled him roughly to his feet before Balthier felt truly ready to stand. Guido steadied his balance as Balthier wavered on his feet. Hamish held an enraged Bethesda back from another attack.

She spat at Balthier instead and then turned her head to beseech Hamish, 'He is the enemy. Don't you see? Why can't you see that they are all evil? All of them, every last Archadian scum should be wiped off the face of Ivalice. Then maybe we shall know peace.'

Bethesda turned and glared into Balthier's eyes, her own burning with the cold blue brilliance of absolute hatred.

'Look at him.' She screamed, 'Look. At. Him. He can't even shed a tear, can't show remorse. He's an Archadian, they are all evil; all heartless, empty, soulless monsters. We should throw him to the Banshee's and let them be appeased in a shower of his blood.'

Balthier raised a hand, almost languidly, to brush away the blood that ran from the shallow cuts she had made to his face. He looked into the twin pits of hatred that were her blue eyes and thought she must be right, for he felt nothing. He could not feel.

But then he felt it, like a dark tickle in his soul, curving up his lips in a humourless, utterly callous smirk.

'You could do that, dear lady,' He sneered, 'But once they are done with me they will feast on you also.' He laughed harshly, more a bark of defiance than any sort of humour.

'Unless of course any of you know how to fly an airship, hmm?'

Bethesda lost in her rage swore at him and snarled wordlessly as Hamish caught her neck in a tight pinch upon the pressure point and she descended into unconsciousness. He carried her body onto the Strahl and tied her down into one of the passenger seats.

No one spoke as Balthier struggled to get the Strahl's Mist choked engines to fire and the gloss air rings to turn.

No one looked back as the Strahl raced for the unblighted horizon, the screams of Nabudis' fallen echoing in each man and the one woman's mind. They did not need to; the horrors they had seen would be waiting for them in the dark of every eye blink, the shadows of every dream.

Balthier hands gripping the steering levers until his knuckles were white; he found it difficult to breathe, to see and even to think. With every particle of the soul he apparently did not possess he longed for Fran; Fran who knew everything, Fran who could absolve him. Fran who could explain to him how one country could do such a thing to another, how one man could do that to another.

And yet...and yet, with every thump of his heart he heard the rapport of his Sirius rifle and the wet thud as the bullet hit home in the bodies of the remnants of a people, a civilisation, and he realised that there was no absolution.

He was Archadian and he would suffer for the sins of his motherland just like the rest of her soulless, conscienceless children would do, _must do. _

Balthier had never wept in his life. He did not know how. Had never known how, but at that moment, if he could, he would have wept. He would have wept blood had it made a difference.

He would have wept and begged salvation for the fallen and because he was Archadian and cynical and inherently evil, he knew, of course, that it would make not one whit of difference.

What was done was done and yet again the Empire had won.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Nineteen: From the precipice of damnation the views are better

_Ffamran had not spent much time in galleons, or in fact sea vessels of any description. He had always preferred the sky to the oceans in any respect. However__, on first viewing,__ he thought that the captain's cabin onboard the __Syren__ w__as__ rather plush. _

_A delicate chandelier hung from the low wooden ceiling and ti__nk__led in the breeze coming through the wide bank of windows__ and the spacious quarters had been upholstered in soft red velvets and mahogany wooden panelling. _

_As __Ruthy__ led __Fframran__ and Jules into the cabin, __Ffamran's__ eyes were immediately drawn to the large, muscular man with the __eyepatch__ and unruly mane of greying hair that sat rather incongruously perched on a antique dining chair drawn up around a gold gilt inlaid table. _

_Ffamran's__ hackles went up on the back of his neck just to look on the man, though he did nothing but peer passively back at Ffamran and Jules as __Ruthy__ sauntered over to him, draped herself across his huge shoulders and gave him a peck on the cheek._

'Aren't they a pair, Remus? I told you a trip to Archades would be worth the hassle of bypassing the Judiciary.'

_Remus__, as the man-mountain was evidently called, did not respond either to __Ruthy's__ proximity nor her words, instead he stared into __Ffamran's__ eyes with his one cold greenish-grey eye with the intensity of a hunting hound. _

' Yer the Judge what wants to break the Landissian outta chokey?'

_Ffamran blinked. __W__atching and listening to Remus talk was a peculiar experience, it was __akin to__ suddenly discovering mountains or huge pillars of stone could talk and reason. Somehow it just seemed wrong; __i__mplausible. _

'Well, boy?'

_Remus flexed his folded forearms as he rested them against the table, corded muscle rippled smoothly under weather worn skin. However the les__s__ than subtle attempt at intimation did not have the expected response; it simply served to awaken Ffamran from his __stupor__ and kindle a spark of belligerent defiance in him._

'Possibly, who might you be?'

_Though Ffamran knew this man was the alleged sky pirate he had come to meet__ as they had not been formally introduced__ he decided to weigh in on the side of caution in his address to the man. _

_Remus's__ grizzled, unshaven face contort__ed__ in__to__ what might have been meant as a mocking smile, though on his wide oversized features it was hard to tell. _

'_Possibly, who might you be?_ Bloody toff._'_

_Remus mimicked __Ffamran's__ polite but guarded inquiry in high, quavering falsetto before growling the insult Ffamran had heard so many times he had become quite inured to it. _

_Instead of responding as he was sure Remus expected him too, Ffamran waited patiently for whatever the man intended to do next. _

_Quite without warning, except to Ffamran who had been watching the man's every twitch, Remus slammed his fist down on the table top, making both Jules and __Ruthy__ jump. _

'Well, boy, yer gonna answer or aren't yer?' _Remus demanded clearly irritated both by __Ffamran's__ patient passivity and by the fact that the man's heavy-handed theatrics had failed to move him. _

_Ffamran almost smiled, a slight, tight twitch of the lips, '_I'm sorry sir, I did not realise I was expected to offer comment.'

_Remus launched himself, with the Hume equivalent of a seismic shift__ out of the chair and rounded the table, throwing off __Ruthy's__ clinging grip. Jules, who had been uncharacteristically silent all this time, took a number of hasty steps back as the huge man lumbered towards Ffamran who remained holding his ground. _

'Are'll only ask this question once more, boy, an' if yer knows whats good fer yer, yer'll answer right quick, got that?'

_Remus's__ breath, hot and foul against __Ffamran's__ face, smelt revoltingly of ale, smoking leaf and rotting gums__ Ffamran resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose as he continued to affect the expression of mild, fatuous credulity that he wore as a uniform everyday he was on duty in the Judiciary barracks. _

'What're yer wantin' wit' the Landissian?' _Remus demanded, cracking the knuckles of one huge, meaty hand menacingly. _

_Ffamran shrugged, disinterestedly, '_To release him from his imprisonment.'

_Ruthy__ standing by the table was just visible to Ffamran behind and slightly to the right of Remus, was watching the exchange with a hawk-eyed, but vaguely amused intensity. Jules, standing behind Ffamran, could be heard to mutter under his breath._

'Now you gone and bloody done it.'

_Remus was quiet, or at least as quiet as the huge man could be, his breathing wheezing out through massive lungs heavily as he seemed to be a__ss__essing Ffamran where he stood; Ffamran remained still and counted down the seconds._

'Why'd yer want to let 'im out, then?' _Remus did__ not__ bother to bellow this time and the light of a shrewd __animal intelligence__ winked in his one eye. _

_This was a question Ffamran had avoided answering even in his own head, but now, staring into the one eye of a man who under normal circumstances Ffamran would never__ have__ had to demean himself __by__ associat__ing__ with, he felt a spark of something wild and free and strangely unlike himself._

_Ffamran smirked, _'Because it will be an embarrassment to the Judiciary they shall not easily cover up. House Solidor is promising a public execution for the terrorist Hamish Fon Denbak, Vayne Solidor will be less than impressed to see his sacrificial lamb go free.'

_Remus blinked his one eye and shifted back slightly in evident surprise, behind him __Ruthy__ stepped forward and chuckled richly._

'Oh, yes, I like this one.' _She stepped up to Remus and again, sinuous as a snake, wound her arms about his neck, _'Can we keep him? I'm sure I could make a very pretty villain out of him.'

_Remus ignored her and Jules was muttering something along the lines __that__ even street ears dr__ew__ the line at__ outright__ treason,__ Ffamran ignored them both as well. __I__nstead Remus simply watched Ffamran and Ffamran in turn watched him. _

'Yer a Judge and the son of one o' the wealthiest men in Archades, why'd you want t'go rogue?'

_Ffamran who was by no means sure he did want to go '_rogue', _whatever that meant,__ had not the slightest inclination to discuss his inner motivations with this man. Instead he deliberately looked about him, breaking eye contact with Remus for the first time to survey the cabin._

'I have my reasons,' _He retorted airily, _'Where is Raz, by the way? I was told he would be present for this meeting.'

_There was a moment where Remus shared a look with __Ruthy__ and then a sharp, jerky nod. __Ruthy__ turned on her heel and went__ to__ the large bank of windows__s__he opened one of the panes and pulled in the small bedraggled and wet __Bangaa_

_Both Jules and Ffamran blinked in surprise to see __Raz__ tied up like a spit roast and c__ursing__ a blue streak behind a muffling gag as __Ruthy__ dropped him onto the table as if the small, but powerful__Bangaa__ weighed nothing at all._

'Oh bollocky hell.' _Jules muttered nervously as __Ruthy__, grinning maliciously, pulled free a viciously serrated __kitchen__ knife and placed it under the diminutive __Bangaa's__ beaky snout. _

_Remus contorted his facial muscles into that almost smile once more, '_This is what yer call an incentive boy.'

_Remus__conitued__ explain__ing__ magnanimously, _'We don't know yer, see? So we's decided to use yer little Bangaa as security so's that you play fair wit' us.'

_Ffamran watched as, smiling with an almost sultry curl to her lip, __Ruthy__ tugged gloved fingers through the tiny __B__angaa's __braids__ and brushed the knife teasingly over his exposed throat with the other hand. _

_Ffamran, almost eerily calm, having descended into the place inside his head where he was so well insulated from everything happening around him that he could watch and analyse his own actions and the actions of others with a cool, academic detachment, raised one eyebrow inquiringly._

'I fail to see how that,' _He pointed nonchalantly to the trussed up and imperilled __B__angaa_'is supposed to act as either incentive or deterrent or, in fact, influence my reactions in any meaningful way.'

_Remus's__ craggy face went through another difficult transformation as he frowned. __Ruthy__ stopped smiling lasciviously and puckered her brow in a scowl of thoughtful concentration. _

'We'll bloody kill 'im.' _Remus snapped angrily. _

_Ffamran reacted with the dispassionate amusement of one who has decided that everything he had gone through in the last few weeks had been so far from anything he knew or expected he longer cared and shrugged._

'If that's what you wish to do, do so.' _Ffamran heard Jules indrawn breath and the sudden flurry of muffled__ and__ incomprehensible__, but undoubtedly angry__ mutterings from the __B__angaa__ on the table, but kept one eye on Remus and the other on __Ruthy_

'I can't do anything to stop you, if you have some burning desire for cold blooded murder. I'm hardly going to risk my life to save the life of a Bangaa I have met but once before and even then not under the most amicable of circumstances.'

_Ffamran raised his hands nonchalantly and checked the shiny gold cufflinks on his cuffs for something to do.__ Covertly he saw the flash of another silent communication between Remus and __Ruthy__ as their plan to frighten him into subservience failed._

' You know,' _Ffamran drawled conversationally, meeting Remus' one eye in casual regard._

'If you had truly wished to successfully intimidate me it would have been better to find a hostage I actually cared for so that the leverage you wished to use against me carried some weight.'

'Yer bloody smug git!'

_Ffamran suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of an __A__rcturus__ rifle and had a moment of abstracted envy that this brute owned such a lovely gun, before his attention snapped to the more important matter of imminent fatality. _

'How's this for leverage then.' _Remus growled._

_Somewhere behind __Ffamran's__ back he heard the clatter of someone (undoubtedly Jules) trying to open the locked door of the cabin. After a moment he heard Jules' snide, but slightly panicked__ whispering._

'Oh bloody marvellous, _Master _Ffamran, you only gone an' made 'im 'opping mad. Now 'e'll kill us an' cut us into collops to feed the ruddy fishes.'

_Ffamran did not waste the breath to tell Jules to _shut the bloody hell up _but instead continued to breathe steadily in and out as he looked unflinchingly into Remus' one steely eye._

'Better.' _He replied almost slyly, _'But your threat lacks any real weight for you see, you are not going to kill me.'

_Something shrewd and darkly amused flashed in that one steely sea green eye and Remus quirked his whiskered lips in a sneer of yellowed teeth. _'How's that then, boy?'

_For some obscure reason Ffamran felt himself relax, suddenly knowing he was right. However he was not so foolish as to push his luck too far._

'You shall not kill me,' _Ffamran replied carefully, _'because if you did you would first have to contend with having murdered the son of one of Archades leading citizens, but more pertinently, you would not get your hands on the Judiciary Gil I have in my possession.'

_Time seemed to stand on its head, seconds oozed by with the glacial crawl of millennia as Ffamran waited for Remus to react to having his bluff so soundly called. _

_It was __Ruthy__ who eventually broke the tense stalemate between Ffamran and Remus, as she began a low, sultry chuckling._

'Oh, yes, Remus, we simply must keep this one. He's so sharp he's like to cut himself.'

_She shot a laughingly venomous look __Ffamran's__ way as she tossed the butchers knife onto the table and abandoned __Raz__, strolling towards Remus who gave her an unloving glare before lowering the rifle he had trained on Ffamran._

'Think yer clever do yer boy?' _He snarled belligerently as he turned away, tossing the lovely __Arcturus__ to the floor and collapsing with all the grace of an avalanche into the chair by the table once more._

_Ffamran felt an uncharacteristic but nevertheless strangely natural smirk curl his lips, revelling in his momentary triumph, _'No, I know I'm clever.'

_Thankfully neither Remus nor __Ruthy__ seemed to hear him though Jules did and the look he gave Ffamran as the street ear in training remained huddled close to the only escape route was one of incredulity tinged with respect for his daring. _

_By this point __Raz__ had bitten through his gag and wriggled out of his bindings, the diminutive __Bangaa__ glared at all present in the cabin before hopping off the table top onto one of the chairs, his scaly head only just rising above the table._

'All a load o' self-servin' cut throats, the whole lotta yer.'

_He groused though considering his brush with near death the __Bangaa__ did not seem as put out as one might expect__ Ffamran decided this was pro__bably__ some uncouth pirate custom whereby they hog-tied and threatened each other during any social __gathering_

_Remus was watching Ffamran as he beckoned both boys over with a magnanimous gesture that entirely failed to put either one at ease. _

_Personal differences aside Ffamran and Jules shared a silent look of complete accord__L__oathe each other they may very well do but for the time being they needed each other and in this _interesting_ company they had only each other to watch the others back. _

_Ffamran sighed and walked forward to take one of the spare chairs, after an almost imperceptible pause and one last look towards the locked cabin door, Jules hurried forward and slipped into the last chair, looking about him furtively._

'Right then,' _Remus grinned. _'Let's come to terms, shall we?'

_When no one said anything__ including Jules who forestalled his natural inclination to speak more than was good for him and let Ffamran do the talking for both of them, reasoning that the Judge __toff__ had done well enough so far, Remus scratched at his whiskered face and fixed his shrewd__ly__ savage mono-orbed gaze on Ffamran with the tenacity of a Silver Lobo__'s jaws__ on a bone. _

'So's yer be wantin' revenge on the Empire then?' _He said thoughtfully returning to their previous discussion of motivations. _'Revenge is a trickys thing. A man can get too worked up on their own want for it and their mates tend t'be the ones t'suffer fer it.'

_Ffamran looked bluntly back at the sky pirate, or whatever this man was supposed to be, growing annoyed._

'This isn't about revenge and frankly I fail to see why my motivations are of such interest to you. You are a pirate, I am offering to pay you to loot and pillage and such like, for that is what you do, isn't it?'

_There was for a moment a very dangerous pause, wherein even __Ruthy__ glanced at Remus sharply as if expecting an eruption of sudden, intense violence. Instead the man smiled wolfishly and started to laugh low in his throat, sounding like the whirring, guttural growls of__ a__ Lobo__ gnawing on a bone._

'Aye, yer right. I don't rightly care what yer got against Archades or what yer be runnin' from, but the thing of it is, a boy like yer wit' a name like yer's, fetches a high price on yer head; either to see yer hang or see yer safe back in the bosom of yer family. That's the kinda information what matters to a pirate.'

_Ffamran watched Remus watch him, briefly distracted by the notion of being returned to his father's 'bosom', frankly, aside from the unpleasant and somewhat gender confused imagery this inspired, Ffamran doubted his father would shed a tear for the loss of his greatest failure. _

'Help me break Hamish out of the Judiciary dungeon and you can have the Judiciary Gil and never have any further dealings with myself. Really I fail to see the risk.' _Ffamran snapped peevishly._

_Ruthy__ was watching him, anticipatory smile scything across her face she rose from her chair to slither to his side and pinched his cheek as one would a small child, except that he doubted any normal woman would pinch so hard._

'Oh, but that's the point dear boy, you _don't_ understand.'

_Ffamran pulled away from her as much as he could while seated and resisted the temptation to rub his stinging cheek, vaguely wondering if he was to end up with a bruise. _

_He scowled, _'What is that supposed to mean?'

_Remus laughed, '_It means boy that _you_ are likely more valuable to us pirates than any pretty Gil you care t'trade. A clever, sharp lad like yer? I reckon Nylous would pay verra well for yer.'

_Ffamran twitched noticeable and tried to control the cresting wave of panic as he looked into __Ruthy's__ satisfied, laughing eyes and into the shrewd hard sea green eye of Remus__ and realised he had fallen into a trap the design of which he neither understood or knew._

' Bloody 'ell!' _Raz__ jumped up on the table top angrily, '_Yer can't be friggin' serious man? The toff's full o' 'im self I grant yer but 'e's just a laddie, don't give him t'Nylous, man.'

_Ffamran,__ who had watched __t__his exchange without much comprehension,__ asked the only question that needed asking._

'Who is Nylous?'

_It was __Ruthy__ who answered, sliding a slinking hand around his shoulders and whispering insidiously in his ear, flicking her tongue in and out to make him jump and squirm as she did so._

'Why the pirate king of course, dear boy. He'll be delighted with you; a smart, clever, wicked little boy, like you.' _She snickered __hissingly_, 'And once he's grown bored of you, you'll be jumping at the chance t'join my crew.'

_Ffamran thought fast, as he lifted __Ruthy's__ clinging arms off of him and kept one eye on Remus, sitting still and watchful in his chair. Ffamran did not particularly like the sound of any of this, but thought that it might be yet another attempt to intimidate him._

'This Nylous,' _He began meditatively addressing Remus and ignoring __Ruthy__, who quite frankly scared him, '_He would be able to ensure that any searchers sent from Archades could not find me, correct?'

_Remus grinned at him, yellowed teeth catching the sunlight and gleaming wetly set in his huge, dark swarthy face. _'Aye, he could make sure yer were never found.'

_Ffamran nodded, catching__ but choosing to ignore__ the less than subtle threat implicit in that statement. _

_It had occurred to Ffamran that getting out of __Archades__ was simplicity itself, he could simply catch a commercial airship flight out of the Capital, but surviving outside in the unknown, uncharted (at least by him) places of __Ivalice__, well that was not so easy. _

_Ffamran came to his decision; he knew it was not a particularly desirable decision and that the numerous hidden variables and possible unknown dangers that lurked inherently within this course of action could pose problems to him, but at less than seventeen and consumed by an all-encompassing and obsessive desire to escape home and country, none of those factors truly mattered._

'Very well then, if that's what it takes to gain your aid and safe passage for myself out of Archadia, then I agree.'

_He said calmly, hoping that agreeing voluntary to be taken to this pirate king would make the experience potential__ly__ less dangerous. _

_Surely a great many seemingly unpleasant things in life were only unpleasant if one was forced to them, but if one voluntarily accepted such courses of action then, that surely, could affect the outcome for the better? _

_Ffamran saw by the slight widening of Remus' one eye that he had not expected Ffamran to turn himself over voluntarily to Remus and then __Nylous__ therefore possibly he could use this to his advantage? _

_Raz__ spoke up, _'Don't be bloody daft boyo, yer don't want t'be in service t'Nylous.'

'Shut up lizard.' _Ruthy__ hissed menacingly grabbing up the kitchen knife and turning on the __Bangaa_

_Ffamran ignored them, he and Remus were lo__c__ked in a silent battle of wills, the older man trying to stare through __Ffamran's__ soul to find the secrets within__ while Ffamran (who in truth was yet to possess any secrets) simply willed the whole thing to be over._

_He wanted his freedom and if he had to sell his liberty to gain __that__ freedom, as paradoxical and contradictory as that sounded, then Ffamran was prepared to do it. Gods knew if he had to become a __gods__ damn sky pirate to gain true freedom he would do so gladly._

_Though, Ffamran thought fastidiously__ studying the unkempt state of Remus' attire and his general lack of grooming__, he sincerely hoped it didn't come to that. _


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty: The loss of her brings only despair

Balthier was almost grateful for the squadron of Dalmascan fighter gliders the Strahl encountered en-route back to the Highwaste.

Evading strafing fire from the nippy little fighters at least provided adequate distraction from his thoughts. Balthier had decided that thinking too much or too long on anything at the moment was simply not a good idea.

With Nono's efficient aid keeping a keen eye on the radar screen Balthier was able to lose his pursuers by doubling back towards Nabudis and risking an unplanned and decidedly uncomfortably emergency landing, not to mention, burned out engines by hiding within the dissipating Mist cloud that had consumed Nabradia.

Taking a long, tedious detour around the cusp of Rozzaria's north-western most border and sweeping south over the Ozmone Plains before heading sharply north easterly he was eventually able to dock the labouring Strahl in the Highwaste close to the Salikawood.

Hamish' camp was in a state of just barely controlled panic. They had seen, as Balthier brought his ship down to land, cloaking device active before he docked, the ant trails of Imperial battalions and artillery advancing on Nalbina from the Phon Coast.

'It begins.' Guido intoned with a ridiculous solemnity that caused Balthier to grit his teeth against some form of sharp, mocking reproof.

It wasn't beginning, he might have snapped, it was ending. This was not the beginning of hostilities it was the culmination of them.

Raminas of Dalmasca was a fool if he sent troops from Rabanastre to Nalbina; the Empire no longer needed to fight when they could lay waste so effectively to a civilisation such as Nabudis with out sending a single garrison onto the Nabreus Plains.

Balthier did not say any of it however, the shallow scratches on his face from Bethesda's nails stung a little in the gritty gale that whistled through the gulley's and passageways of the Highwaste but Balthier did not even consider using some form of curative, for once his vanity was forgotten.

Instead he strode down the gangplank of the Strahl and toward the camp without a word, not even acknowledging the presence of Hamish at his side. Balthier, with Nono, still and quiet, held protectively in the crook of his arm, was trying not to acknowledge anything or anyone at all.

He was trying not to notice or acknowledge or even consider the conspicuous absence of his partner. He did not want to accept that Fran was not present in the whirl of activity within the rebel camp.

Keeping his eyes set dead ahead, seeing, but not truly comprehending except in the most superficial of senses, anything that went on around him Balthier could pretend in some unacknowledged part of his psyche that Fran was merely behind him helping to sort through crates of munitions and sharpen arrow points in preparation for the futile defence of Nalbina Hamish and his people were preparing to wage.

'Cap'n, the Imperial scum are gathering at mouth of the Phon Coast. They send scouting groups through the Salikawood to make a path. Transport ships are launching from the Hunter's Camp and making for Nalbina.'

One of the rebels ran to Hamish and gave his report in a breathless rush. Balthier continued to walk until he stopped, still in hearing range of the discussion, by one of the fountain pools. Nono climbed out of the cradle of Balthier's arms and fluttered to the ground.

'I will look for Mistress Fran.' He said large eyes glittering with a sorrowful depth and luminance. Balthier, all his concentration maintained on thinking of nothing, barely acknowledged him.

'How large a force?' Hamish sounded a little less gruffly confident than usual, a creeping hint of defeat, exhaustion and a sense of over-whelming futility that could drown a man if he let it entering his tone.

Of course it was possible Balthier was simply projecting his own emotional state on the Landissian at this juncture. Landissians were all blunt instruments after all, no doubt incapable of the finer, more complex gamut of Hume emotions.

Or was that Archadian's? Apparently he and his kinsmen lacked the souls for such depth of feeling also.

Balthier pressed his shaking fist to his forehead and squeezed his eyes closed. It was so interminably difficult to think and Balthier was nothing if not a thinker.

'Some forty thousand, best estimate. Twenty thousand ground troops, maybe ten thousand of those mounted, then ten thousand pilots, the rest arming the siege engines and the cannons.'

Balthier's attention snapped back to the conversation going on just behind him.

It seemed strange to him that they still discussed such things. It seemed as though time had become distorted and convoluted.

It took so long to formulate some form of coherent thought, so long for these rebels to discuss trivialities, and yet it took no time at all for an entire civilisation to die. That, to Balthier, did not seem quite logical.

Hamish was talking again and Balthier found it difficult to understand the man. His accent suddenly becoming harsher, thicker, rougher, their common language mangled under the man's tongue.

'Intimidation tactics; twenty thousand ground troops and heavy artillery can not go through the Salikawood. They seek to lay out a force on the borders to intimate Dalmasca.'

'Or they intend to fly them over and merely congregate on the coast ready for departure.' Guido suggested. Quite a group had formed around their captain, all eager to discuss that which did not need discussing.

Could they not tell all was lost already? It did not matter how it was done only that it was done. The Empire had won and it was over save for the spilling of more innocent blood.

Balthier could not perceive why they bothered; twenty thousand or twenty what did it matter? They had not seen a single steel plated soldier in Nabudis and still the Citadel had burned.

The wind picked up about the camp. The howl of wary wolfs' carried on the fast rushing eddies of gritty, pollen heavy cold gales. Balthier watched the surface of the fountain pool ripple, shatter and tremble in fragmentary reflections; fractured images of a world that no longer made sense.

'They won't launch more than the bare minimum of their air fleet and will avoid transporting heavy armaments by air.'

Hamish was saying swiftly as a hypothetical argument over tactics and stratagem overcame the little group. A few feet away one of the younger Landissian rebels dropped a metal case full of rifles and the weaponry clattered to the rough, red balding ground, red dust flew along with the loud and swift verbal condemnation from the clumsy fellows compatriots.

'Dalmasca's air fleet is small and lacks defensive armament but those fighters could take down Archadian transports before the Arcahdian ships, those lumbering behemoths, could begin to turn back to the safety of the Coast. No, I tell you, Archadia hopes to force Dalmasca to concede through a show of force.'

Hamish insisted irritably, Balthier shook his head contemptuously but was still surprised to find himself speaking.

'No they don't.'

Balthier turned back to the little group with a smirk in place upon his face. He saw Bethesda's face contort in an expression of disgust and hatred and met her hate filled eyes with impunity, the advantages of having no discernable conscience, he thought bitterly.

'So the _Archadian_ speaks does he?' She spat, he was almost impressed with how vile an insult she could make of one simple word; _Archadian. _

_Archadian. Monster. Evil. Soulless. _

Hamish ignored her and looked to Balthier, 'What's percolating in that head of yours, Ffamran, what's the Empire up to?' He asked keenly.

'It is as I said before Hamish.' He shook his head darkly. Oddly irritated that even men such as Hamish who had fought and lost countless battles against the Empire could still fail to intuit how the Archadian war machine worked.

Perhaps it was true and only a child of that machine could understand its inner workings.

'Nalbina is the bait; the Empire will not send a full force, that's true, though I wouldn't delude yourself along the lines that the Empire cares for the loss of it's cannon fodder.'

Balthier took a moment to force his thoughts together. He was not a man of action particularly, at least not the sort of spontaneous, impetuous action that born warriors and the average sky pirate lived for.

He was a man of thought, layer after layer of ulterior motive and careful pre-meditation informed even his most off the cuff and throwaway statement. Thought and planning and reflection created the man; devised every last minute escape, every moment of seeming spontaneous brilliance.

Today that busily toiling mind failed him. The simple acts of complex deduction, the process of analytical combustion as his mind fed on the fuel of circumstance, conjecture and possibility to create plausible, sensible solutions and explanations, stalled and the monumentally simple act of forming sentences in the right order took all his time and energy.

'The Empire has destroyed Nabudis, it seems reasonable to assume that they do not intend the same for Dalmasca or, in all probability, Rabanastre would now be a smoking ruin in the sands.'

Another empty smile and all the while Balthier could not stop thinking, over and over, that Fran was not with him. Fran was not with him and a country that had flourished when Archades was simply a wide spot in the road was now a pit of flaming perdition.

'The Empire wants Dalmasca. Undoubtedly this desire also involves bringing Rabanastre to her knees, but regardless, the city is more valuable to the Empire relatively unscathed. However it does not follow that Archadia cares a whit for Nalbina, or her populace.'

Balthier pointed out dryly. He turned ironical eyes, now drowning in a bitterness he had not before possessed within him, on each one of the little group, seeing dawning comprehension tighten Hamish' weathered brow, watching Guido's face grow ashen and Bethesda draw in a hiss of horrified rage.

'Not again.' Bethesda whispered outraged. 'Surely they will not unleash on Nalbina that which ravaged Nabudis?'

Balthier shrugged extracting a strange, perverse pleasure from living up to her expectations of what an Archadian does and does not feel. He smirked.

'The Empire has a new formula for success in any military engagement. An efficient new weapon that appears to need no large force of arms nor soldiers on the ground to eliminate any opposition. I should imagine the Empire is quite eager to demonstrate this fact on Dalmasca should Raminas decide to be stubborn.'

'Aye, no doubt.'

Hamish agreed bitterly as the gales whipped through the foliage within the clearing. The natural glen within the copse of trees and carved out of a hollow between the red cliffs protected the Humes within to some degree from the howling, slashing winds, which screamed like a Banshee.

'We can do nothing for the city should the Empire strike.' Hamish said flatly, 'But the people, aye, we can get as many of them out as we can.'

Swiftly Hamish turned to his ready and able cohorts, soldiers all but without a country to fight for anymore. The rattling wind caught on his wheat coloured braids and whipped them about his head like a crown of serpents.

'Eielle, Fitye, Clyde…..you three take your squads through the paths and make for Nalbina, lead anyone who can stand or be carried from the city into the Highwaste.'

Three tall blonde and muscular Landissians broke from the faceless, pale blurs of nameless other Landissians that loitered in the clearing and gathered other equally fair and blonde and large men and women with them, armed with greatswords, bows, rifles and axes before swiftly departing.

Balthier turned on his heel and walked away. Hamish continued to rap out orders to his troops.

Balthier did not care to listen, nor be delegated too. He did not care over much for the people of Nalbina. Oh, he had no wish to see harm come to them, but he did not _know _anyone in the city and thus found their ultimate fate of little interest.

In his mind, that cool, rational, analytical tool he replied on so much, Nalbina was simply a piece in a game of war Balthier suddenly realised he did not understand as well as he thought.

Even a gambling man knew when it had come time to leave the table. Even a man, such as Balthier, addicted to the cerebral thrill of pitting one's wits against capricious chance and circumstance like nothing else, knew when to call it a day.

Today was that day. Balthier had thrown in his hand, a strong hand he had thought, expecting only to make a pretty Gil from the constant war around him and possibly increase his notoriety as he did so, to add a few more pages to the glorious legend he intended to make of his life, but now found himself bereft of everything of value and consequence in that life.

He wanted to run away. Such a simple, inelegant desire, but so inescapable. He longed to flee, to scoop up Nono and point the Strahl towards the nearest horizon and simply fly. Fly anywhere, fly off the face of the map and never dock upon the soil of this benighted land again.

It was a source of some confusion to Balthier that he did not simply do this. That instead he walked calmly towards one of the fountains and sat on the lip of the pool to inspect his clothing with an absence of thought and the fastidiousness of long habit. His cuffs were stained dark with blood, rust brown splotches on the embroidered Rozzarian cotton of his sleeves.

There was an irony there, he was sure. The blood on his Archadian hands was purely his own.

He dropped his head into those hands and whispered into his palms, forgetting propriety, proper posture, and the state of his hair under the run of his hands.

'Where are you Fran?'

'_Master Balthier!' _

Balthier jerked his head up towards the cry, to see Nono scuttling along the ground dodging and dashing through the running, heedless feet of Humes, clutching in his hands a delicately decorative helmet of thin but durable silver.

Balthier launched himself to his feet. He recognised that headdress, it was Fran's. Striding swiftly forward Balthier snatched up his crewman before one of the large, lumbering Landissians could crush the Moogle under foot, and snatched the helmet, with its filigree decorated holes for ears, from the tiny creature.

Nono clutched at his vest with tiny hands, 'Master Balthier! Master Balthier, oh, it's terrible!' The Moogle waved a note in his closed fist, the roll of paper looking like a flimsy spear in the Moogle's grip.

'What is it? Where is Fran?'

He asked sharply, detaching the Moogle's hand from the paper as his diminutive crewman climbed up on his shoulder, which was an awkward fit, having a foot long creature straddling his shoulder and clutching onto his collar to keep balance.

Some slowly reviving sense of ironic detachment within Balthier considered how incongruous a sight it was for a man to be conversing with a Moogle on his shoulder, but that was a distant concern, a lone voice in the wind.

'I found this note on a tree, Master Balthier, it was with the helmet. What are we to do?'

Nono gabbled as Balthier unravelled the note and squinted down on the scrawl of scratchy lines scoring the paper in ink-blotted uneven squiggles that made Balthier's own sloppy hand look like the finest of calligraphy.

_Balthier_

_I have your bunny-girl._

_Come to the old Manse (you know the one) by this date or I'm going to boil her bones to make a stew and make meself a necklace out of her teeth._

_Your old friend, Einar._

A date of two days hence was scratched at the bottom of the page. Balthier looked at the note again, re-read it, blinked, thought over it, shook his head and read it once more.

He turned blankly to look at Nono, whose white furred, whiskered, face was very close to his as he sat astride Balthier's shoulder. The Moogle's dark eyes were liquid pools of obsidian worry.

'Where did you find this note?' He demanded. The prospect that Fran could have fallen afoul of _Einar _was perhaps the single most inconceivable part of this entire hellish day.

Ivalice could fall in fire and blood for all he cared but he could not imagine his Fran, his strong, ferocious, knowledgeable Fran, succumbing to anyone or anything except the eventuality (and in her case very much _eventual_ eventuality) of natural mortality.

Following Nono's swift directions Balthier traversed a winding path which sliced through the high cliffs of the Highwaste, shoulders hunched against the vicious headwind, to a small fork in the winding rocky roads of the Highwaste where a gnarled lone tree stood silent sentry.

A vicious scale studded dagger that had once held the helmet and ransom note to the tree remained wedged into the dark bark, Balthier braced a foot against the trunk and wrenched the dagger out.

The blade was clean and brilliantly sharp, but it was just a dagger; the sort that could be purchased anywhere and gave away no clue to the identity of Fran's attackers.

Balthier walked about the trunk of the tree and stopped when he saw a jagged, splintered edged cut across the bark at about level with his chest.

Balthier meditatively ran his thumb across the slicing wound in the trunk; a wood splinter pierced his thumb. Balthier sucked on his thumb and tasted blood as memory intruded on reality.

Memory supplied him with the buzzing whirring echo and vision of a blue skinned Bangaa with a rotating saw blade weapon. A weapon that had sliced into the wooden boards of a hut in Safrosa Bay leaving marks just like this. The headhunters, whatever their names were.

Four Bangaa against one distressed Viera? Balthier considered this; no, he decided, Fran would not have fallen to those odds. Especially if she happened to be distressed, distressed Fran would likely not have wasted time using a weapon but instead torn them to pieces with her claws.

Yet there were no tell-tale pieces of eviscerated Bangaa to evidence Balthier's faith in Fran's abilities. He scowled as the biting, hostile wind stung his eyes and threw grit into his face to aggravate the scratches already given to him.

Balthier reconsidered the possible scenarios that could have led to Fran's downfall, even as the prospect that Fran could fall at all rankled within him.

Four Bangaa and one Seeq against one distressed Viera in an environment of high Mist content…..those odds were less favourable. Decidedly less favourable; Balthier felt his scowl etch deeper across his face, he began unconsciously tugging on his sleeve with nervous fingers.

A few feet from the tree Nono, back on his own stumpy feet, found a patch of the delightfully pollen rich bright orange flowering weeds that had such detrimental affect on Balthier's sinuses. The clump of fleshy leaves and phosphorous bright buds had been liberally splashed with crimson; blood.

After this macabre discovering it became uncomfortably easy to see the marks of violence and combat in the lonely, isolated fork in the path, the gale kicking up gritty, biting gusts of cold air as if mocking him.

Balthier reached out for a fine fistful of long silver threads of hair that adhered stubbornly to an outcropping of rock growing from the face of the cliff like a boil, the tendrils of gossamer fine hair flapping in the breeze like a flag.

His fingers reached for those threads of silver only to lose them to the screeching gale. Balthier looked down at the note clutched in his fist; the words blurring under the run of his tired, almost burning, eyes.

Nono clung to his trouser leg as the gale buffeted the poor creature but Balthier could not spare the time to notice. He was still staring sightlessly at the note when Hamish found him.

'Ffamran, gods damnit man, we make for Nalbina and we shall need your ship, this is no time for wandering the Wastes.'

Balthier might have given some acidic, sharp tongued reply, save for the fact that by the time he looked up, Hamish was gone and the cloud swirled sky, free of the stifling blanket of Mist, but caught in a resultant tumult, was suddenly rent with the sounds of war.

_You play a treacherous game. You meddle in deep waters. _

Fran had spoken those words to him, not so very long ago. A warning Balthier had, in customary fashion, failed to heed. Now Fran paid the price of his arrogance and Balthier was drowning in the deep waters of war, whose currents he had thought, in his conceit, that he could safely navigate.

Shaking himself and refusing to look into Nono's oddly emphatic eyes, Balthier picked up the Moogle and headed back towards the camp. There was still a little time. Just less than two days to rescue Fran, but only one night, the closing of one monstrous, blood soaked night, to save the people of Nalbina.

Balthier, with a fervent and desperate sincerity that was not generally native to his jaded, self-serving soul, hoped with all his being that neither task proved to be a fool's errand.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-One: Moral dissolution is not merely the preserve of the lower classes

_A/N: Hello everyone, like promised (for anyone who has read my profile page) I am back up and running with this story again….giving it my undivided attention. So should be regularly updating…if there is anyone still out there reading of course! ;)_

* * *

'Three days and we make our move on the Judiciary prison.'

_Ruthy tapped her long, manicured finger nails (filed into delicate points) on the table top. _

_Ffamran watched her and resisted the impolite urge to yawn. He, Remus, Ruthy, Raz and Jules had been discussing terms and plans to liberate Hamish Fon Denbak for something close to four hours._

_Adrenaline had long since run its course, leaving Ffamran feeling tired, drained and worn out. His mind was slowing down and this, considering the company he was currently in, was a dangerous thing. _

'Need passwords and security clearance, that's not the kind 'o thing that falls offa t'back o' a Chocobo cart.' _Remus grunted._

'Perhaps the little streetear can help us?'_ Ruthy_ _purred. She fixed Jules, who was sagging even more visibly than Ffamran himself, despite the fact that Jules had done and said very little throughout the fraught negotiations. _

'Not ruddy likely; them Magister's 'old t'codes an' change 'em every other bloody day. Even if I knew a bloke who knew what they was today, 'e wouldn't know what they'd be tomorrow or the next day.'

'We could force our way in?' _Ruthy proposed but the hesitancy in her voice spoke volumes to her view of the prospective success of such an action. Remus snorted expulsively and with obvious and overdone distain. _

'An' be slaughtered on the way out by half the sodding Imperial Judiciary.'

_Ffamran had barely paid the conversation any mind. A thought, fully bloomed, had lodged itself in his mind and refused to go away. _

_Listlessly he looked up at the dusty chandelier (most likely a replica made of glass and not true crystal) that hung over the table from the wood beamed ceiling of the cabin, trembling as the ship rocked almost subliminally while in harbour, buffeted by the eddying current of the water lapping at the keel. _

'Magister Zaagabaath holds the key codes and security passes for the Judiciary prison, as well as the armoury.'

_Ffamran's voice held an abstracted tone. He was thinking through the idea in his mind that made him instinctively uncomfortable, speaking as he thought meditatively. _

_The other four in the cabin did not interrupt. Each one recognising that a Judge and of the Gentry would have the greatest chance to acquire the codes. Each of them also recognising, despite scant association, that Ffamran was possessed of a prodigious, albeit, manipulative and complicated, intelligence. _

_Ffamran meanwhile was wrestling with his conscience and discovering, to his chagrin, that it was surprisingly easy. He looked up and met each of the pirates' eyes, finally settling his level gaze on Remus who watched him through his one eye with that sly, unpolished, almost animalistic intelligence._

'Three days?' _Ffamran asked, though he did not really need the deadline reiterated. _

'Aye,' _Remus nodded; there was the faintest flash of strong yellowed teeth as he waited for Ffamran to get to his point._

_Ffamran nodded slowly, _'I may be able to acquire the access codes, or failing that, a means to get through security relatively unmolested.'

'How, pray tell?' _Ruthy drawled leaning across the table, reds lips spread in an anticipatory and expectant smile. Ffamran scowled._

'Does it matter so long as it is done?' _To his enormous displeasure he could feel his neck and cheeks and the tips of his ears heating up. _

_Ffamran had never had much of a disposition for blushing or embarrassment; he had been trained too well and raised with the insulating armour of privilege, but now he could feel encroaching shame for what he was contemplating doing, what he had more or less committed himself to do, giving him away. _

'Ahhh, our Master Ffamran has a wicked little idea, does he; something underhanded and immoral, perhaps?' _Ruthy's eyes twinkled like melted tar. Remus's heavy brows clumped together in an irritated scowl._

'Get yer bloody claws outta t'boy, yer dirty tart.' _He growled. Ffamran's estimation of the man went up slightly for as he did so. Ruthy merely chuckled, low and rich and settled back in her chair like a well fed Couerl._

'Well, no doubt we shall soon discover what wickedness has our newest crewmember so overcome with embarrassment he is quite unable to look us in the eye; and he such a bold and proud young man.'

_Ffamran, who had indeed averted his gaze to stare intently at the polished dark wood of the table top as if hoping to divine the secrets of creation within the marbled whorls and swirls patterning the wood, looked up sharply and coloured more deeply in self-reproach._

_Ruthy smiled slowly; her sly, predatory amusement slicing across her face. _'Run along then, boys, we grown-ups have a great deal of rape, pillage and pilfering to do.'

_It was clearly a dismissal and both Ffamran and Jules wasted no time in rising from the table (as did Raz). _

_Jules was almost twitching from foot to foot as he waited for Ruthy to sidle over to unlock the cabin door, and then he ran ahead of Ffamran and Raz up onto the deck and down the gangplank laid out for them to disembark by Ruthy's ominously glowering all male crew. _

'Cor blimey, that was a bit exciting' weren't it?'

_Now that they were off the ship and walking swiftly away from the pier Jules' usual, grating good cheer and capacity for inane and vaguely insulting chatter resurfaced. Ffamran ignored him and kept walking, head up, eyes dead ahead, back straight, without a word._

_It was only when he passed a quiet alleyway between a fishmonger and an armourer's store that he ducked into the gap and, hands braced against the small red bricks of the building, rested his cold sweating brow against the wall and forced himself to release the breath he had been holding since leaving the Syren._

_Ffamran found that his legs were shaking so badly he could not keep himself up and turning around (just barely avoiding falling) he sank gratefully down onto the alley floor, ignoring the bits of broken brown glass and the potential to soil his trousers on the dirt on the cobbles, in favour of comfort. _

_He cradled his head in his shaking hands and breathed carefully through his nose and released the exhalation out of his mouth. He concentrated on the monotony of his respiratory system and waited for the high singing in his ears and the black dots dancing behind his eyelids to disburse._

_When he was able to focus on his reality Ffamran realised that Jules had taken it upon himself to collapse against the wall beside him and was busy guzzling from a battered silver hip flask._

_Messily wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Jules offered the flask to Ffamran._

'Ere mate, yer look like yer could use some o' this.'

_Good breeding and hygiene dictated that Ffamran should refuse the offered libation. Partaking of intoxicants with Streetear's was undoubtedly a suicidal action. Certainly Ffamran eyed the offered flask somewhat fastidiously considering what manner of diseases he might catch from putting his lips to something that had been in Jules' mouth. _

_Ordinarily he would insist the spirit inside was re-distilled, the flask melted down to liquid metal and recast, before he would ever dream of taking hold of it let alone imbibing from it._

_Today, however, was no ordinary day._

_Without any discernable manners Ffamran grabbed the flask and took a very healthy draw from the neck of the flask. _

_Seconds later he could almost feel brain cells eroding under the assault of lightening fire raw Quicksilver Water, a spirit usually taken diluted with tonic water. The pure liquor was hard and strong enough to knock out a Nabradian warhorse and left a permanent burn down the length of Ffamran's gullet._

_When Ffamran felt he could formulate speech he turned to stare at a grinning Jules in open shock, _'What is this?'

'It's me Granny's speciality; she used t' give me a table spoon o' the stuff 'fore bed when I was a nipper; knocked me out like no-one's business.'

_Ffamran considered the flask speculatively; he had stopped shaking. _'Why does it not surprise me to discover you were weaned on pure alcohol?'

'Eh?' _Jules frowned, puzzled._

_After another moments appraisal of the possibly lethal contents in the flask, Ffamran took another drink from it (which did not burn him quite so badly now he was expecting the initial reaction) before handing it back to the Streetear._

_As implausible as it might sound the two very different young men sat in companionable silence passing the flask between them. _

_Once they had drained the flask Jules retrieved another, identical flask, from the other breast pocket of his worn, heavily darned red waistcoat._

'Always be prepared, that's what me granny says.' _He waved the new flask invitingly and offered it to Ffamran._

_Ffamran shook his head and was slightly disconcerted when the action made him dizzy._

'I'm no fool.' _He scoffed, taking pains to keep his enunciation clear. _

_His head was feeling fuzzy and the desire to stretch out and take a short nap right here in the alley sparked a dull warning in his mind that he should really take himself home._

'You will have me stripped of my good boots and coat and left without my Gil or my worldly possessions in an instance, laying face down and unconscious in this alley, if I give you the opportunity.'

_Jules did not bother denying it, instead he grinned, shrugged, and slurped from the flask._

'An' what 'bout yer, Master Ffamran; yer gon an' sold yersel' t'a bunch o' pirates. Soon yer gon be part o' the, what'cha callit, t'criminal underclass jus' like me.'

_Jules' expression (excusing his near permanent leer) suggested a genuine curiosity._ 'What made yer do that, eh?'

_Ffamran shrugged uncomfortably, even though shrugging was frowned upon as a bad habit by his peers._

'It seemed like a good idea at the time.' _He mumbled indistinctly. _

_Suddenly the flask and its contents seemed much more appearance, inherent risks of inebriation in the company of Streetears not withstanding. _

_Jules laughed, _'Yer ruddy bonkers, yer are.' _He sounded almost impressed, despite the less than favourable description of Ffamran's mental state. Despite himself Ffamran barked out a laugh._

'You have no idea.' _He sighed darkly. _

_Slowly, carefully and in dignified manner, Ffamran pulled himself up using the wall as a support. He decided to ignore the fact that his vision was doubling slightly and the surrounding environment had taken on a strangely garishly bright and indistinct fuzzy quality. _

_Feeling that some form of farewell was required considering he had just shared a drink with the Streetear and gone through something of a shared ordeal aboard the Syren, Ffamran gave the other youth a curt nod and started walking towards the harbour._

'Oi, what'cha gon' do about them passcodes?' _Jules called after him._

_Ffamran hesitated at the mouth of the alley, severely tempted to ignore the question, but the answer hovered on his Quicksilver burned tongue. Without looking back at the Streetear because he didn't want to see the others face when he realised what Ffamran meant to do (and uncouth and unpleasant as Jules was he was certainly no fool), Ffamran answered him._

'I know Magister Zaagabaath's daughter.'

_Nothing more needed to be said. Ffamran walked out into the harbour with Jules' lewd, but impressed, whistle in his ears. _

'Well now, me ole Ma, rest 'er soul, always said you Gentry were 'eartless bastards, guess she was right. Yer'd never catch me usin' me gel like that.'

_Ffamran threw a glare over his shoulder before he left the alley completely, _'You don't _have_ a girl.'

_It seemed like a safe bet and he must have hit his mark if the expression in Jules eyes was any indication. _

_Jules pouted and sunk into silence. Ffamran resisted rolling his eyes and left the Streetear to nurse his flask. _

_Feeling like a hundred eyes bored into his back Ffamran walked through the crowds in a relatively straight line and made his way towards the sky cab rank back to Tsenoble and onwards to the Grand Arcade._

_Ffamran expected when he turned his key in the front door of the house in Grovesnor Square Highgarden Terrace that he would have an unobstructed path up the stairs to his bedroom wherein he hoped to sleep for some considerable amount of time._

_It was with some irony that he found himself reflecting that he really should have known better by now. Nothing ever went strictly to plan for him._

_Almost as soon as he stepped in through his front door his father surprised him (unpleasantly) by appearing like a summoned phantom from the doorway of the main parlour right in front of Ffamran._

_Mildly intoxicated Ffamran's reflexes were not what they should be and he collided with his father's frock coated barrel chest before recoiling and almost tripping over the turned up corner of the thread bare Bhujerban woven carpet rug stretching the length of the hallway._

'There you are son. I have been waiting for you.'

_Cid's booming jovial voice filled the hallway and Ffamran winced. _

_It seemed like a small eternity ago but he remembered that he and his father had had some manner of altercation over breakfast that morning and so Cid's obvious cheer seemed especially worrisome._

'Waiting for me, Father?'

_Ffamran finally managed to summon a befuddled reply. Conversing with his father (with or without the involvement of imaginary friends) was a balancing act across a wide and treacherous chasm over an ocean of knives and pointed implements at the best of times, befuddled by strong drink Ffamran found himself completely out of his depth. _

'Indeed, you were in a rare mood this morn, my boy.'

_Cid hesitated and began cleaning his double monocle on the lapel of his dark blue frock coat. Ffamran's hackles rose as he realised that this physical mannerism suggested that his father was trying to broach an awkward subject with him._

_Ffamran did not want to know what could make his (deranged) immensely self-assured father nervous. He could not decide if the swirling in his gut was apprehension or the drink._

_Let this stand ever more as a warning: never drink with a Streetear. _

'I have been rather pre-occupied of late in the lab.' _Cid continued doggedly. _'My work is progressing well. Giruvegan was a revelation.' _Cid grinned broadly face alight like a child's in his obsessive joy. Ffamran felt decidedly nauseous; he swallowed hard and remained stolidly silent despite feeling less than steady on his feet. _

'You are of an age Ffamran. Not a child anymore. You've been a man since you were fifteen but until now you showed no inclination towards romantic pursuits. In fact I had begun to worry about you, my boy.'

_Cid chuckled awkwardly and Ffamran had little recourse except to frown dazedly; _'Worried Father?'

_When had Cid found the time to worry about him (or even notice his son's existence) in the last year? Ffamran had assumed his raging psychosis had taken up all Cid's attention. _

_Cid was still talking and Ffamran forced his muzzy mind to focus and follow his father's ramblings. _

'Hmm, but no longer; you were always were an independently minded boy, Ffamran. Soon you will be looking to wed and spread your wings, eh?' _Cid winked at him conspiratorially. _

'Wed?' _For a moment the word made no sense to him. Slowly and in befuddled fashion Ffamran replayed his father's last words and suddenly all the blood left his head. _

_Oh, sweet gods, no!_

_Cid finally replaced his monocles to balance on his proud blade of a nose, the Bunansa nose, and gestured somewhat flustered towards the parlour. _'Come son let us sit in the parlour. We need to have a talk.'

_Ffamran, through an act of extreme will power, managed to avoid dropping his jaw to the floor, collapsing in near hysterical laughter or merely vomiting profusely all over the rug, and simply proceeded his father into the parlour in dumb silence._

_Ffamran perched on the pale mauve two seater settee that his paternal grandmother had purchased when she and his grandfather had purchased the townhouse in Archadia and moved from the family seat in Atholl in the northwest of the Empire; Ffamran had always thought the piece of furniture was hideous and clashed horribly with almost everything else in the cluttered room. _

_Cid sat down in his own high, wing-backed, leather armchair that had once belonged to his father and his father before him; Ffamran rather doubted that anything in the entire room was under fifty years of age (except himself). For some reason this realisation made him oddly irritated and not a little depressed. _

_Clearly not sure how to proceed with the 'talk' he had decided was necessary after innumerable months of ignoring his son's increasing misery in favour of a figment of his own imagination, Cid rose from his chair with a creak of springs and went to retrieve his pet lizard from its glass display cage._

_Blinky was a northern reticulated two headed plains lizard and had been known to bite the thumbs off of the unwary. _

_The hideous creature crawled up Cid's chest to wind around his neck. The Lizard blinked two sets of eyes at Ffamran in the way of the cold blooded. Ffamran returned the blink in kind. The lizard broke eye contact first._

_Silence ticked by measured only by the steady ticking of the gold carriage clock resting on the mantle piece. Ffamran fought a losing battle to stop himself yawning as he waited for his father to decide precisely what it was he wanted to say. _

'We have received a very nice invitation from Madam Zaagabaath to attend high tea the day after tomorrow at the Zaagabaath summer house.'

_Cid picked up an embossed white velum card between two fingers the way one might hold a playing card. As he wafted it through the air the dying sunlight forcing its way through the old, moth eaten draperies at the window_ _picked out the gold gilt calligraphy etched onto the card._

'I had intended to spend the rest of the week in the lab.' _Cid continued oblivious to the fact that his son had gone white as a sheet as the implications of the invite and Cid's demeanour registered in his son's drink-slowed wits._

'In light of recent developments however I think a social engagement would be a marvellous idea. Zavier Zaagabaath is an old friend and I have been quite remiss in maintaining social ties.'

At least with those of us that actually exist_, a snide voice in Ffamran's head added silently, the voice might have been his other self but was just as likely to have been the drink. _

_Cid was studying him intently but for the life of him Ffamran could not think of any suitable (or even an unsuitable) response. He was tired, partially inebriated, decidedly out of his depth, and all he wanted to do was sleep. _

_Cid frowned thoughtfully, his brown eyes sharp and alert as he scrutinised his son. Ffamran had never imagined a time whrer he would actually welcome the return of Cid's imaginary friend, but lo, he dearly wished for it now._

'Perhaps other forms of engagement might be discussed during the festivities, hmm?'

_Ffamran had been prepared for this; his mind finally having ascertained some time ago the direction of his father's thoughts. This did nothing to dispel his dismay. Sometimes, of late, Ffamran truly believed that the Gods he had never been encouraged to believe in enjoyed bedevilling his life. _

'I don't think so Father.' _Ffamran finally responded in a flat voice. _

_Cid's eyebrows itched up his forehead in obvious surprise, _'What's this, my boy? The Zaagabaath family is well established and a fine match in esteem for our own. It would be poor sport if your passion for young Anna should be cooling so soon.'

_Cid spoke coolly but something like amusement lurked in the depths of his eyes._

_Ffamran groaned in exasperation and rubbed his hands down his face, _'There is no _passion _Father. There never was; at least not on my side.'

_He added judiciously emitting from his mind all thoughts of their dalliance at Sobel Shore. That was a complication he could not deal with right at this second. _

_He had a prison break to plan, a life of indentured servitude to a Pirate King to escape; he had no time to become engaged to be wed. _

_Cid's lips twitched, _'You were seen in quite a passionate embrace in Highgarden Promenade, my boy.'

_For a moment Ffamran just stared at his father, then, patience exceeded, he exploded._

'She would not shut up. Father the girl never stops talking. I have done nothing to encourage her yet she will not leave me alone. I had exhausted all other means of stopping her constant stream of prattle that is the only reason I kissed her.'

_There was a moments' silence in which time Ffamran wondered at himself that he had confided in his father again; just like he had been accustomed to doing before his father went quite barking mad. _

_Ffamran met his father's eyes not sure whether he wanted to see what lurked within them; the father he remembered or the man he had become accustomed to since Cid's return from Giruvegan. _

_Cid started to laugh, full guffaws of mirth. The laughter rolled from his lips from deep in his chest forcing Cid to remove his glasses as tears streamed down his cheeks._

'Oho, Ffamran, Ffamran my boy,' _Struggling to contain himself Cid took a deep breath, _'only you son, would take such a novel course of action when confronted with a woman in full 'prattle'.'

_Despite himself, despite knowing that this moment was merely an aberration to his father's lunacy, despite knowing this moment of closeness had come far too late to make any difference, Ffamran found his lips twitching in response to his father's open, generous mirth. _

_He fought it knowing that it would make leaving all the harder now he had proof that his true father still existed under his obsessions and psychosis, but he could not help himself. _

_Ffamran laughed once more with his father. With the cold fingers of prescience squeezing down on his heart he knew it would be the last time he would ever do so. _

_He could not know it then, of course, but ever after, when time and tide had taken their toll, despite future horrors and his own transformation into someone quite unlike himself, Ffamran would always remember this moment._

_He would remember that the father he had left, the father he had abandoned, had laughed with him two days before Ffamran betrayed him utterly._

_Ever after it was his father's laughter and the light dancing in Cid's familiar brown eyes that would haunt him and chase him even further away from his past. _

_In years to come the man Ffamran would become would look back on his life with ironic detachment, recognising that as always had been the case, Cid had been the driving force that had made Ffamran's choices for him. _

_He would tell himself ever after that he hated Cid for that; yet he would never escape the sound of his laughter mingled with his father's infectious braying guffaws. He would never forget but he would always regret. _


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Two: Never have a Hume do a Moogle's work

_A/N: Just a quick note about the OC introduced into this chapter and Balthier's interaction with her. It has been stated in official Final Fantasy XII literature that Balthier is a lady's man. Bearing this in mind and his preference for strong women (Fran….possibly Ashe), I imagine that Balthier spent his early days of piracy (pre-Fran) 'befriending' an assortment of amoral women and antagonising their male counterparts. _

_Equally, for anyone wondering, the inspiration for Marybelle is Tia Dalma/Calypso from Pirates of the Caribbean…..I loved that creepy/sensuous voodoo woman! ;)_

_Finally I am also toying with a story about Balthier in the very early days of becoming a pirate involving Remus/Ruthy/Hamish and now Marybelle…I haven't decided if I'll write it but I love writing Balthier as an amoral (almost villainous) cad and I have this feeling that straight out of Archades Ffamran/Balthier went a little mad, bad and dangerous to know!_

_Anyhoo…on with the show…._

* * *

Panic had a scent.

This was something of a revelation to Balthier. Panic smelled like soldering metal, rust, blood and smoke. It tasted like copper and vinegar and it flashed behind the eyelids in brilliant spikes of burnt orange and black.

He wondered how Fran coped everyday smothered in the redolent emotions of Humes.

Raminas of Dalmasca had proved himself to be not only a fool but a culpable fool. Already the sky was thick in the south west with the air cavalcade of the entire Rabanstran air-fleet en-route to Nalbina.

In Balthier's opinion every man or beast that would surely be cut down in the ensuing pointless, futile battle could be laid directly at Raminas' door.

Balthier could not imagine what form of madness could possess a man, even a man trained to the military, to fight on behalf of a king, or even a queen, simply because they wore a crown.

Balthier could not imagine that anything in all Ivalice could possess him to fight for the monarchy (not that there existed a monarch who would accept the aid of a sky pirate, so the point was moot).

All these thoughts occurred to Balthier in the numb place within his mind where panic lurked under the surface of these facile distractions and irreverent ponderings. The rest of Balthier's attention was involved in the argument he was engaged in with Hamish.

'Have you run mad, Ffamran? We cannot wait for the battle to be joined to evacuate the people of Nalbina.'

Hamish gesticulated wildly, which, because he was standing too close to the rocky protrusion holding one of the fountains dotting the Highwaste clearing, meant that he smacked his hand against the rock and swore more out of increasing exasperation than pain.

Balthier waited patiently, gazing blankly over the depleted encampment. Most of Hamish's 'troops' had already headed for Nalbina and the rest watched their captain and the 'Archadian scum' argue with varying degrees of interest and hostility.

'No I have not run mad, and I'd appreciate it if you did not cast aspersions against me.'

'Ffamran, the people by the fortress will be slaughtered, ground to dust between the Imperial army and the Dalmascan forces.'

Balthier sighed, pitching his voice as if he was addressing a very young child, 'Yes, I am well aware of this. I am also aware of the fact that if we begin a mass evacuation of a few thousand people the Imperial army is going to notice.'

Balthier stressed the last word heavily hoping to drill understanding through Hamish's thick head.

'The only chance we have is to begin the evacuation after the first engagement on the battlefield when both sides are otherwise preoccupied.'

Hamish pursed his lips, 'And then we lose our route of escape. The Highwaste and the Nalbina Hill will be that battlefield, Ffamran. We will end up trapped behind the town walls with those we seek to evacuate.'

Balthier shrugged, 'Has it not occurred to you that perhaps there is no way we can evacuate the town?' he asked tiredly. 'That perhaps all those in Nalbina are merely dead men walking?'

'We cannot simply do nothing Ffamran. There will be children, women, civilians', within the town. For the gods own sake Ffamran, I know you care.'

Balthier scowled, 'It is not my responsibility. It is not your responsibility.' He muttered darkly.

Balthier was a sky pirate. Piracy was not a vocation that required one to be altruistic. He was a bloody criminal. Saving entire towns from annihilation was not his responsibility. He was supposed to rob, plunder, pilfer and manipulate people out of their worldly goods.

Nowhere in the mandate of piracy did it state that he had to _care._

'Look me in the eye Ffamran and tell me you can walk away from this.' Hamish said simply.

Hamish sighed when Balthier said nothing, his treacherous gaze skittering from Hamish' face to rest furtively somewhere over the other man's right shoulder.

'You've done what I asked of you; I dare say you've more than earned your fee. I won't hold it against you if you want to take the Gil and go and find your Viera.'

_Fran._

Her name chimed in Balthier's mind, quivering vibrations running through him that spoke of a peculiar symbiosis and a dependency that did not weaken but strengthen. He truly believed that he and she were greater as a unit of two than they could ever be on their own.

Except now he was alone.

What would Fran want him to do? Would she want shot of the horrors that man inflicted of each other or would she seek to save those lives she could?

What did it say of him that he looked to the wishes and motivations of his absent partner to make his decisions and not his own will?

Then again, Balthier thought bitterly, he had never been one to act on his own motivations.

He had always followed the will of others, from Archades through to piracy under Remus and now the elaborate caper of the leading man (whatever that was) which he performed for the amusement of the only friend he had.

_Fran. _

Fran, who had followed him into this calamity and had lost her liberty because of that misplaced trust in him.

He was a dandy villain; a caricature of a gentleman rogue. He was a man masquerading as someone he wasn't. He was not supposed to care. He was not supposed to embroil himself in the everyday horrors of the simple folk.

It was a shame then that he did care; especially as the mere passive act of compassion and pity had never done anyone any good.

None of this was his responsibility. He had left the Empire, broken his ties, torn himself free of his mother country and turned his back on the twists and turns of politics and morality.

_If I leave now then I concede defeat to the Empire. _

Balthier's eyes alighted on Nono who was watching him with large, limpid black eyes. The embryonic tickling of an idea poked at the back of his mind.

_Nono………._

'Ffamran, sweet gods' man, pull yourself together, man.'

Hamish' fingers clinking in front of his face jolted Balthier from his thoughts and he scowled irritably as his train of reckoning was derailed. He knocked the man's hand away from his face in annoyance.

'Do you mind; I'm trying to think.' Balthier snapped.

Nono continued to stand perched on the exposed roots of a nearby tree, huddle close to the trunk for safety and pensively holding his hands together under his chin, large eyes empathic.

Balthier felt his smirk sliding slowly into place; behind his eyes his intellect fired with the brilliance of his newest scheme.

_Never have a Hume do a Moogle's job. _

'We can't evacuate all those people, Hamish, but I think I might know another way.' Balthier purred stepping around the curiously suspicious Landissian and making his way over to Nono.

'Master Balthier?' Nono blinked at him, speaking in quavering voice.

Balthier, still smiling and aware of Hamish close on his heels, crouched down in front of his crewman.

'Nono, tell me, how many friends did you make during your sojourn in the Nalbina aerodrome, hmm?'

Nono shook his head, eyes averted, 'You said I was not to be inflammatory Master Balthier, kupo.'

Balthier watched the Moogle grow increasingly fidgety and felt his spirits lift. Nono was hiding something.

'Ah, but there are ways to be _'friendly'_ and engage in purely hypothetical, companionable discussion without perpetrating acts of civil disobedience.'

Balthier was well acquainted with Nono's fascinating habit of inspiring his fellow Moogles (a race not known for their aggression) to acts of civil unrest, riots and general revolutionary behaviours. Nono was a firebrand wrapped in soft white downy fur.

Nono was a weapon of mass disruption that did not look as though he could hurt a blade of grass. Put the Imperial army up against Nono in full _Kupo_ related fervour and Balthier was confident the entire Archadian Empire would be a smoking ruin by dusk.

Nono blinked his glassy black eyes, 'I did make some friends Master Balthier, Kupo.' Nono conceded reluctantly before rushing to add the caveat, 'we didn't do anything kupo. Just friendly discussion like you said, kupo.'

Balthier grinned, 'Marvellous, Nono. Do you suppose these new friends are like to still be in Nalbina per chance?'

Nono nodded vigorously, 'Oh, yes, kupo, they wouldn't leave the aerodrome, kupo. We Moogles are loyal. We don't leave our posts.'

Balthier nodded, trying to suppress his smile, 'Hmm, indeed, indeed. I have always remarked on the moral calibre of Moogles. You are Paragon's of virtue compared to Humes.'

'Kupo, we don't like to blow our own trumpets, kupo.' Nono's bright orange plume twitched at the praise and he clasped and unclasped his hands.

Balthier, aware of Hamish almost radiating impatience at his back but knowing Balthier well enough to know that he had some manner of plan and so remaining quiet, nodded his head gravely.

'Yes, at times like these, I cannot help but bring to mind the philosophy of Kupo. How much better off the people of Nalbina would be now had we Humes embraced a philosophy of fraternity and peaceful coexistence without greed and material wealth.'

Nono was now nodding his head so vigorously eyes alight with rapture and near religious fervour that his orange pom-pom plume lashed back and forth behind his large head like a Tchita serpents tail.

Balthier kept his smirk on the inside with supreme effort, 'Nono, would it not be a great expression of the power of Kupo, a showcase to non-believers of the superiority of a world without financial inequality and imperialism, if you and your new 'friends' were to help the poor besieged people of Nalbina escape, hmm?'

'Ohh, yes, kupo.' Nono breathed elated, 'the philosophy of Kupo is very clear that all races are equal and we must give to our brothers even if they be Humes.'

'Wonderful. Let's go.' Balthier reached out without further ado scooped up the Moogle, slung him up onto his shoulder and turned in the direction of the Strahl.

He almost walked into Hamish who stood before with an expression of glazed in comprehension on his broad face.

'Hamish please, this is no time to stand around dumb as a stump. We have a town to save.'

Balthier clapped the man on the shoulder cheerfully and strolled off briskly towards his beloved Strahl.

'Nono, we shall need a Moogling post set up somewhere in the depths of the Salika Wood. Do you suppose such can be accomplished in the few hours we have before the Dalmascan and Archadian troops swarm the town?'

'There is no power in all Ivalice greater than the power of brothers united, kupo.' Nono informed him with all due solemnity.

Balthier almost laughed. There was no panacea that worked more effectively to improve his moods than a dangerous, elaborate, outlandishly brilliant new scheme in the offing.

'Jolly good.'

Balthier reached the Strahl and retracted the boarding ramp, ignoring Hamish, Bethesda (whose dagger glare aimed at his back was a tangible burning pain pressing into his shoulder blades) and Guido who followed at his heels like a pack of confused puppies, albeit puppies armed to the teeth with broadswords, hand held incendiaries, traitors bows and rifles.

Balthier started up the Strahl's engines, crooning to his beleaguered and beloved ship as her engines rolled over painfully and the wing mechanism opened with a distinct judder and awkwardness.

It had been a bad day for pilot and airship both.

'You have a plan, Ffamran?' Hamish spoke up. Balthier had the feeling he had asked this question before and he had simply ignored the man.

'Better than that, Hamish, I have a Moogle.' He chirped cheerfully.

It did occur to him when the three Landissians and even Nono cast him apprehensive looks that he may have lost his mind. There was a high singing in his ears and his heart pounded erratically in his chest. He did not know if this signified excitement or an impending coronary.

Behind his pilot's chair a furious, rapid three way argument in the guttural language of Landis took place as Balthier turned the Strahl towards Nalbina (the cloaking device still active he did not want to be shot out of the sky by the Nalbina town guards anti-airship artillery), he did not need to be fluent in the language (which he most certain was not) to know he was the subject of the debate.

'Hamish,' Balthier called back to the man seated behind him, 'have you ever travelled by Moogling post?'

'By what?' the argument ceased abruptly; Hamish sounded irritated and confused.

Clearly the rebel leader's patience was reaching its limit. Balthier chuckled impishly, it was a small and petty revenge to cause Hamish a mere fraction of the distress he had caused Balthier by dragging him into this mess but he would take whatever he could get at this juncture.

'Moogling post; it is a marvellous invention, quite new. The Moogles intend to implement it within the larger cities of Ivalice. I believe Rabanastre may have a system. I had the privilege of seeing some of the prototypes some time ago and was highly impressed.'

'But what does it do, man, and is it significant?' Hamish all but growled.

'It is a system of instantaneous transportation. We cannot walk the Nalbinese population out of the town without detection but we can use the Moogling post to create a line of transportation points from the town to the Salikawood.'

There was a moment of silence, alive with realisation and consideration as each of his passengers came to their own understanding of Balthier's 'plan'.

Hamish started to laugh, 'Good gods, Ffamran, you are still as sharp and as mad as a fistful of nails.'

Balthier smirked, 'I'll take that as a compliment.' He drawled though beyond his smug words Balthier's mind worked fiercely to consider the practicalities of how to make this plan work.

Once upon a time, back in the mists of his childhood, Balthier remembered that he had watched a passing entertainer perform tricks of sleight of hand. He remembered one such trick had been to make a woman in a box disappear.

At the time the child Balthier had been had been greatly impressed by this miraculous act performed without the aid of magick. Then his father had spoiled the trick by explaining that it as all done with hidden trap doors under the floor.

Vaguely Balthier thought he recalled having been very angry with his father for destroying the illusion.

Balthier privately acknowledge a twinge of wry irony that he now intended to perform the same trick, in a manner of speaking, vanishing an entire town right before the eyes of the Imperial Army.

'There should be Moogles in the aerodrome who are amenable to assist you. Can you and your people establish and man the Moogling posts alongside the Moogles?'

'Aye, I reckon so, so long as the Moogles work fast.' Hamish conceded meditatively. Nono sniffed in reproach at the suggestion that his fellow Moogles would ever be less than fiercely industrious in their work.

'We'll need to establish the range of each post and the limits of how many people can be transported at one time, but aye, I reckon you could be on to something with this plan, Ffamran.'

Balthier nodded, 'Good. I'll put us down on the roof of the aerodrome and let us all be thankful for bad security as it does not appear that the Nalbinese have erected their Paling as yet. Convenient for we would have a damnable time of it trying to force our way in through the Paling undetected.'

Dropping anchor above the roof of the Aerodrome hangar was relatively simple and upon setting foot on the ground in Nalbina it became apparent why no one had had the common sense to erect the Paling.

Anarchy had come to Nalbina town.

Men at arms scurried towards the Fortress where the phantom lights of powerful magick already flickered from the highest tower of the fortress palace. In their rush to sure up the fortress the governors of Nalbina had left the people to their own devices.

Unsurprisingly, trapped like rats within the town walls, the people descended into chaos and terror.

'Yea gods, do they have no sense, no shame, to leave the people without leadership at a time like this?'

Guido growled shaking his shaggy head as the four Humes and one Moogle (safely cradled in his captain's arms) stood against the aerodrome wall and watched the people running hither and thither, looting, pillaging, knocking each other over on the cobbled streets and generally behaving like headless fowl.

Balthier shook his head, the view was so like Nabudis, save for the burning, that it seemed, had Balthier been the sort to believe in such nonsense, like a vision of the future. He almost fancied he could smell the acrid scent of charred flesh from the fires yet to ignite Nalbina in a conflagration to rival Nabudis.

'Right then,' Balthier shook himself visibly and broke his gaze from the palpable panic all around him. He looked down at the Moogle clutching at his shirt. 'This would be a fine time to spread the good word, hmm, Nono?'

Balthier nodded to the clump of Moogle's standing together on a packing crate watching the goings on of the panicking Humes with blank gazes. One of the Moogle's, a creamy yellow specimen with a red tunic, spotted Nono and waved.

Balthier took this as his cue to release his crewmen and let the little Moogle flutter off to incite productivity and altruism in his (hopefully) susceptive brethren.

'Can your wee Moogle really make that much difference? These people are all given over to their terror.' Hamish sceptically considered the scene before them. Nono gesturing animatedly and the humes in chaos.

Balthier smirked, 'Watch and learn, Hamish.'

After giving Balthier a suspicious look Hamish and Guido moved over to the Moogle congress, cautiously, while avoiding the rioting crowds of terrified Humes now trying to batter down the wall gates to escape their town turned prison.

Bethesda paused a moment to spit a Landissian curse his way. Balthier smiled (having no idea what she had called him except that it was likely highly offensive) gave her a mocking bow and gestured for her to proceed him.

As soon as she had turned her back on him Balthier spun on his heel and raced down the narrow alleyway between the aerodrome and one of the looted stores lining the wide central avenue.

'What the…?' he heard Bethesda and perhaps Guido shout, spotting him making his sudden exit. Balthier neither stopped nor slowed down as he ran away.

Skidding through puddles and crunching over the broken glass from shattered windows Balthier ducked under low strung washing lines still festooned with drying linens running like the wind through the narrow maze of criss-crossing streets towards his secret destination.

The people of Nalbina were not the only ones who needed saving and Balthier felt no particular shame in admitting (at least to himself) that the Nalbinese were not his priority.

Fran was.

The Wall Tavern was a deliberately ominous and dark place. Growing like a boil from the skin of the town walls the tavern had only two narrow windows and the panes of both were shrouded in grime.

The thick, metal studded black door was firmly shut and the entire ramshackle shack expressed a mien of dilapidation and dereliction that would make most people turn on their heel and head straight for the safety and jovial service of the town's other tavern, the Tower.

Balthier however was not most people and his purpose for being here had very little to do with a desire to wet his whistle.

Rolling his shoulders and loosening the tense muscles of his neck Balthier sauntered across the uneven cobbled street (quieter here, the people who lived in the tiny, rickety wood houses propped up against the town walls were either out looting or had barricaded themselves within their homes to weather the coming storm) and knocked confidently and loudly upon the ugly door.

Three hard knocks and the spy grate in the door snapped open a pair of beady Bangaa eyes, golden and striated, like a lizards, peered at him.

'Greetings and salutations to you,' Balthier smiled ingratiatingly, 'I'd like to talk to Marybelle.'

'Who you be?' the guttural growl had no trouble passing through the thick, tar painted wood of the door, with all ominous warning intact.

'Balthier. I believe you have my wanted poster on your hunters' board?'

To illustrate his point and hopefully speed up the process of gaining access to this den of iniquity Balthier stepped away from the door and held his arms away from his body to allow the Bangaa a better view.

The spy grate snapped shut and Balthier waited, counting down from ten in his head, at the count of five the door opened with an audible growl of squeaking hinges and warped wood. The pungent aroma of smoking leaf (both exotic and mundane), sweat, ales and spirits and blood rushed out of the opened door like a thing alive, desperate for the light of day.

Balthier smirked at the doorman, the Bangaa a pure gold colour, so tall he was forced to stoop under the taverns ceiling, as he entered the dark and dingy interior.

Candles flickered pale and sickly in the heavy miasma of burning incense braziers and smoke. Balthier tried to breathe shallowly through his mouth but even with his best efforts not to inhale too deeply he felt his head begin to spin with the heady mix of airborne intoxicants and sickly sweet spices.

'Bol-tiere, long time no see.'

The woman who had spoken was spectacularly beautiful. She possessed a mane of chocolate brown hair tied into long ropes matted with old and frayed red ribbon. Her impossibly dark eyes were wide set and prettily tilted upwards at the edges and her golden skin glowed with dark brown highlights under the candle light.

'Marybelle, you look ravishing as ever.'

The woman smiled, and her two golden front teeth flashed like lightening in the dim and wavering light. She gestured languidly with one be-ringed hand for him to sit across from her at the small rounded table cluttered with candles.

'You be a charmer, ma darlin' Bol-tiere, you be long time no visit. Ma'belle begin to t'ink you no love her no more.'

Slowly Balthier made his way to the proffered chair stopping to kiss the back of the hand she presented him with before sinking into the chair.

'Never Marybelle; I have simply been inescapably detained from your presence. Incidentally are you aware that there is a war on?' He smiled.

One could never tell with Marybelle and her clan of headhunters what they knew and what they simply did not care to notice.

Certainly Marybelle found it hard to concentrate on anything that did not present her with an opportunity to make Gil.

Marybelle laughed a low deep chuckle that seemed to vibrate through his spine. 'War come, war go. We stay, we die, we live, we die. All de same in de end, no?'

Balthier decided to ignore this comment for the sake of brevity. Marybelle reached across the table and stroked his hand.

'You still wear my rings?' she smiled, clearly pleased, brushing her bony fingers over the garish pair of rings Balthier wore upon the two fingers of his hand.

'Of course; I treasure every gift you have ever given me, dearest Ma'belle.'

Her brown eyes, the irises yellowed from too long in the foul air of this tavern and scant contact with the outside world, pierced him as she looked up. 'You be wantin' sumt'ing den? You no be here if you don.'

'Yes, but that does not detract from the genuine pleasure I gain from your company, my dear.'

Marybelle nodded slowly, letting go of his hand and running the fingers of her left hand over her right, tracing the chunky colourful rings adorning her fingers, some matched his own in colour and some did not.

'You be wantin' you bounty for de heads o' Remus and Ruthy. Ben waitin' dese many months fo' you, darlin'. Not like you to dally when dere be Gil on de line.'

'As I said I've been quite busy of late,' Balthier said briskly, not liking to dwell on either Remus or Ruthy and the hand he played in their deaths, 'but it is our contract I wanted to discuss. As you know I have fulfilled my side of the agreement, Remus and Ruthy are dead. However I want to re-negotiate my payment.'

MaryBelle's head shot up and her yellowed eyes narrowed, 'You get no more den we agreed, dem's de rules. Same fo' you as all de others; I can' be changin' de bounty on you, neither, darlin', dose de rules.'

Balthier sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table. He smiled blandly. 'Of course and I have no interest in dismissing the bounty on my head. In fact, I would like you to raise it, using the Gil that would otherwise be my fee.'

'You mad?' Marybelle stared at him the candles sputtered and spat hot wax across the table top. Balthier did not so much as blink at yet another accusation made against his sanity.

'Not in the least Marybelle. I would like you to raise my bounty and issue a new mark against my life. Contact every active Headhunter you can find; I want them all. Tell them that this raised bounty is only good for one day, two days hence.'

Balthier handed over the ransom note written by Einar to Marybelle with a casual flick of his wrist.

'Let it be known that I shall be at this location on the date specified in this note. Make sure it is an open contract. I want as many headhunters as conceivably possible to converge on this location at the date specified. Do this and I will consider myself amply repaid.'

Marybelle read the note then threw back her head and began to cackle; a wicked, joyous sound that rippled the candles and disturbed the heavy air of the tavern.

'Veer well, ma darlin' Bol-tiere, I do dis fo' you.' Her eyes danced and watered under the heavy smoke within the Tavern. 'If you live you come back to see me t'ough, you be ma fav'rit scoundrel.'

Balthier rose from the table, satisfied that their business was concluded to his satisfaction, 'Wild Chocobos could not keep me away, dearest.' He purred knowing that he had absolutely no intention of keeping his promise and knowing that the cold blooded killer at the table before him knew that equally well.

Balthier pressed a kiss to his hand and held it up to her in farewell and fled the darkness of the Headhunters tavern as fast as he could while maintaining the illusion of nonchalance.

As he started to run back to the main avenue, where he hoped Hamish and Nono had made progress on the evacuation, Balthier sent his thoughts outward to his missing partner.

_Well, Fran I have done my best. I have found an army to rescue you. I hope I am not already too late. _


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-three; Love at first sight; a dream within reality

_A/N: anyone who has read 'The Stuff Legends are Made of' might wonder at this chapter as it is stated in that previous story that the Strahl belonged to Remus who gave it first to Ruthy and then stole it back when she turned on him. The Strahl was also the motivation for Balthier killing Remus at the beginning of that story._

_However the story of the Strahl's origin was given out by Balthier himself….and not entirely unsurprisingly, Balthier lied, as he does quite frequently. _

_Why did he lie?……wait and see ;)_

* * *

_He was dreaming. _

_This was note worthy for more than one reason. Primarily it was interesting that he should be aware that he was dreaming and that the strange occurrences portrayed in vivid monochrome within the panorama of his mind were no more than the figments of his subconscious. _

_Secondly it was peculiar that he dreamed at all. While it could be argued (with some credence) that Ffamran had drifted through his entire adolescence like a sleep-walker awaiting the moment he would wake in a blaze of energy and enthusiasm left unforthcoming, he nevertheless rarely remembered dreaming in his sleep at all. _

_Looking about him Ffamran had the vague feeling that he was in the huge cavernous hangars of the Draklor aeronautics division based in a non-descript de-commissioned army barracks some twenty miles north of Archades. _

_His vision and awareness of his surroundings was unclear. Everything was washed in indistinct water colour shades of grey and sepia brown; the colour of memory, nostalgia and misconception. _

_The dream was soundless, scentless, texture was non-existent and the faint blurry outlines of airship engines and the sleeping shells of sky cabs looked flat and one-dimensional; a half finished theatre backdrop. _

_Ffamran had the distinct impression he was waiting for something or someone. There was an uncomfortable sense of expectation and anxiety that permeated the dream through and through much as a stitched seam running through the fabric of his sleeping mind. _

_Ffamran (the part of Ffamran that was aware that he was dreaming) was growing impatient for something to happen. He could not make his dream self move however and the sense of inertia, waiting on the very edge of change or development, awaiting something new and uncharted, ratcheted up the sense of excruciating tension until he could barely breathe in his sleep. _

_There was something, a vague curious outline rising from the hazy white mists, in the distance and as Ffamran's awareness closed in on it distance dissolved with the melting ease of dreams. _

_It was an airship; except to call something so beautiful, so exquisitely lovely an airship seemed an insult. _

_Ffamran instantly recognised the make and design and something in his engineer's soul shivered with delight. The ship before him was an S-Class Hermaticus Strahl pleasure craft circa some thirty years passed with retractable rear wings. It was known colloquially as the 'dragonfly'. _

_Hermaticus Strahl had been a pioneer in domestic airship design and the Strahl S-class (gifted the designers own name as a sign of the man's understanding that he had reached the pinnacle of his own creativity in this ships construction) was now a much sought after collectors item._

_Sadly a Strahl had not been built in at least ten years and Hermaticus' company had long been out of business for almost twenty years, craftsmanship and creativity proving no match against the rampant, mass-produced, syndicated aeronautics developers (like Draklor) that now dominated the Archadian market. _

_In the dream there was no colour but the small, sweetly curved and shapely craft was still beautiful. He could see that it possessed exquisite tooling and ornamentation along the keel, hull and body. _

_Dream Ffamran, heart hammering with something akin to love, if it was possible for a man to love an inanimate object, raised his hand to touch the cool metal of the ships body with the reverent fingers. _

_He could almost anticipate the cool feel of the painted metal hull. Ffamran was filled with a near religious sense of awe to be this close to such a beautiful, exquisite piece of aeronautic engineering. _

_Endlessly he reached towards the ship through his dreams, straining with every particle of his being towards it. Unsurprisingly at the very moment he was to make contact with the ship of his dreams Ffamran awoke. _

_Sitting up abruptly in his bed, beset with a raging sense of injustice and frustrated anticipation, Ffamran looked about him disorientated for the source of the irritating ringing in his ears. _

_Fumbling fingers knocked over the glass of water on his bedside end table and struggled inelegantly to silence the shrilling brass alarm clock. _

_Giving in to frustration Ffamran cursed and flung the offending timepiece across the room where it hit his book case; the glass face breaking and sending a shower of books tumbling to the floor. _

_The alarm clock continued to shrill its claxon call from the floor. The force of the mechanism was such that the clock vibrated through the thick rug laid over the bare boards of his bedroom floor, almost bouncing across the floor. _

_Ffamran watched it dispassionately for a moment and then, moving with the lethargic shuffling movements of one who has to go to work and truly despises the imposition on his freedom, Ffamran readied himself for his (hopefully) final day of drudgery at the Judiciary. _

_The idea that tomorrow he would either be a successful criminal who had managed what few others in history had achieved and orchestrated a prison break from the Judiciary dungeons or, falling short of success, a traitor to the Empire awaiting a swift execution seemed impossible to him._

_Yet it was true. Today marked the last day of life as he knew it. Tomorrow would either make or break him. It was strange to consider such a momentous notion as he set about his morning ablutions._

_The very day after tomorrow, some seventy or eighty short hours' time he might very well be dead. Certainly it seemed unlikely after tomorrow that he would ever again awake to the shrill of his alarm clock in the familiar stifling comfort of his own room. _

_He did not quite know how to feel about such. Ffamran knew he must escape yet he did not suppose that regretting the necessity of such was so unusual a feeling. Whatever else Archades was it had been his home. He knew nothing else._

_The day after tomorrow he would either be dead, a traitor in chains awaiting execution or a man made anew in a world that seemed filled with strange unknowns that Ffamran could not quite grasp in his imaginings._

_Either way, Ffamran reasoned prosaically as he dressed for his day at the Judiciary, at least after tomorrow he would never have to don the hated Judge's armour again._

_As it turned out his final day under the guise of a loyal lapdog of the Empire was almost pleasurable. This day was the day, once every month, when he assisted Judge Magister Zecht. _

_The swarthy bald man with the extravagant facial hair was not exactly amiable company. He tended to vacillate between gruff impatience and sanctimonious moralising but this was almost bearable as Zecht was on this particular day responsible for the audit of the Draklor aeronautics hangars that had so strangely featured in Ffamran's dreams. _

'Look lively, Judge Bunansa, I shall'nt thank you if this audit tarries over luncheon.'

_Zecht groused coming to inspect Ffamran's progress and discovering the youngest Judge ever to don the armour staring with dumb fixation at the old relic Strahl that had been brought in to be stripped for parts left shrouded half in sheets in a dark corner of the hangar._

'If it does I shall stay, sir. A man of your girth must mind his priorities; it would not do to have you miss luncheon with her honour Judge Magister Drace.'

_Zecht chuckled both at Ffamran's thinly veiled insult and at the extreme distraction that such a slip in the young man's usual tight-lipped courtesy betokened. He studied the airship before him alongside the surly and usually non-communicative junior Judge._

'A fine ship, 'tis a pity she is for the scrapheap.' _Zecht opined mildly. _

_He knew something of Ffamran Mid Bunansa, son of the great Cidolfus. He knew (for in fact it was no great secret) the boy had no desire to persist in the Judgehood and would sooner have disappeared into an aeronautics lab to create marvels of airship design. _

_Curiously Zecht wondered if he might finally manage to hold a conversation with the miserable and sullen boy regarding a subject dear to both their hearts._

_For his part Ffamran, who had been wondering at the simply implausible confluence of coincidence that had led him to dream of the ship he would later see in person, looked over sharply at the Judge Magister, quite appalled. _

'Scrapheap? But this is a classic. It is worth more intact than any other craft in this hangar.'

_Ffamran could have bitten out his tongue in annoyance at his own unguarded outburst as Judge Magister Zecht arched both white, unruly eyebrows, a rather curious amusement reflected in his sorrel coloured eyes. _

'Not according to your Lord Father, Judge Bunansa. It stated upon this inventory docket that the ship's engines are to be removed, the glossair rings to be recalibrated and the rest of the ship to be taken to the foundry.' _Zecht tapped the top sheet of the inventory list attached to the very clipboard Ffamran held listlessly in his hands with wry humour. _

Father, of course it would be Father. _Ffamran thought to himself bitterly as he turned away from Zecht's engaging and open face back to his clipboard._

'I should have this hangar fully inventoried by noontide sir.' _Ffamran said in flat dead tones, falling back into the dull gormlessness that had served him well enough for the last eighteen months of his tenure as a Judge._

'I am confident I will be able to finish the rest of the audit alone if you should wish to attend to other business your honour.' _He added less than subtly._

_For his part Zecht was a little taken aback by what sounded shockingly like a dismissal from a boy not yet in his seventeenth year who was also his underling._

_However, unlike other men of his rank, Zecht did not take umbrage to the boy's imperious manner, and instead, as he did have more important things to do (which did not in fact involve lunch with Drace), he decided to take the boy up on his suggestion and left him to the tedium of cataloguing every nut and bolt in this airship graveyard. _

_It was ironic that that one aborted conversation with Ffamran and his decision to delegate a dull duty to an underling would come back to haunt both Ffamran and Zecht alike in the immediate future. _

_Alas neither Ffamran nor Zecht could know that at the present time. Certainly had Ffamran been thinking of the consequences of his actions and the actions he intended to perpetrate in less than twenty four hours time, he may not have done what he did then and there._

_But then, although he did not know it at the time, he was so use to following someone else's orders (most commonly his father's), Ffamran's future, that which would be lived under a different name, would be defined and dogged by his inability to fully weigh up the consequences of his actions before acting on the impulse of the moment. _

'You sir,' _Ffamran called to one of the yellow overall wearing engineers occupying the hangar. With the imperious attitude of a Judge in armour and the son of one of Archades great houses Ffamran beckoned the man forward._

'Sir, this craft is to be removed from the Hangar post haste. I assume it is fully functional?' _Ffamran gestured to the Strahl S-class from his dreams. The ship's was hull stripped and peeled of all adornment and streaked with red rust in places, not the impeccable beauty of his dream but still lovely enough to captivate his attention completely._

'Beggin' your pardon your honour, but this ship is docketed for parts. I'm to start stripping the glossair rings this very afternoon.'

_The engineer a burly looking sort with the roughened edges in his voice of a newly elevated Ardent, argued with him in reasonable tones. Ffamran however had the authority of both his current (despised) rank and his paternity at his disposal. _

'I know but those orders are outdated.'_ Ffamran replied with utmost confidence and surety. _

'I have since discussed matters with my father who is to inform Dr Phipstone, who I believe is your superior here at the hangars, that this ship is to be placed under the auspices of the public transport division of the civil Judiciary and therefore removed to the aerodrome in Trant for immediate overhaul and refit.'

'Your father….?' _The man frowned. Ffamran waited for the Gil to drop, had this man ever laid eyes upon Dr Cid he could not fail to see the familial similarities between father and son. No one else ever did after all, much to Ffamran's chagrin._

'….Ah, right. You'll be Dr Cid's boy.' _The man blustered clearly flustered to be in the presence of the Draklor chief scientist's son and gentry to boot. But the man was not quite ready to capitulate to Ffamran's every whim and command just yet. _'You spoke t'your father then….today was it?'

_Ffamran lied with the ease of a rug laid out on a floor, _'Myself and Judge Magister Zecht had a meeting with my lord father before coming to the Hangars for the bi-annual audit. My father requested I pass on his new orders to you as he feared a delay in relaying this information should he be unable to find Dr Phipstone in time.'

_The man squinted at him dubiously, _'The public transport division, y'say? What they want with a little craft like this? She won't do much good as a skycab.' _The man chuckled at his own wit. Ffamran gazed back at him impassively._

'I could not say, sir. I am merely relaying my lord father's orders.' _He replied flatly, but he hoped that the deliberately mild but steady look he gave the man would remind him that it was not his place to question why but merely to obey. _

_Seconds ticked by under which Ffamran remained placid and implacable under the other man's curious scrutiny. Should this engineer call his bluff or ask him for more details he would be in difficulty. The fabrication to save this beautiful airship would hardly hold up to any form of prolonged scrutiny or questioning. _

_Finally the man shrugged his shoulders in a loose-limbed manner, _'A'ight, makes no difference to me anyhow. Truth be told I got work on me plate enough without having to tear apart airships for parts.'

_The man cast an appraising look over the Strahl S-Class and laid a large, calloused hand on the rusted paintwork of the hull, _'Nice piece of work this one too. Good thing if them sky cabbies can find some use for it.'

_Ffamran ruthlessly held in check his sigh of relief and maintained his indifferent façade as the man ambled off to make the arrangements to have the Strahl S-class moved to the aerodrome. _

_For another hour Ffamran drifted like a fatigued ghost around the hangar, making pains to appear to be working while in truth he was covertly waiting for the scattering of engineers milling about the hangar to down tools and disappear into the communal break room for their lunch. _

_As soon as they did Ffamran abandoned his clipboard and raced across the hangar to the Strahl S-class. _

_The entrance to the craft was missing both a hatch door and a boarding ramp but Ffamran did not care. He clambered in heedless of the jagged metal and rust cutting and staining his hands as he hauled himself up and through the entrance. _

_The interior of the craft was in similarly poor state to the exterior. The cockpit and main cabin, which (having consulted his near encyclopaedic knowledge of airships) he knew could comfortably seat up to six people, had been stripped of all extraneous seating save the pilot and navigators chair and those were in poor condition layered in torn and mouldering leather upholstery._

_Ffamran brushed off the thick layering of dust covering the control consoles and peered at the varied dials, cobwebbed levers and gauges that constituted the flight controls with a certain fascinated incomprehension. _

_Once upon a time, when Ffamran was perhaps ten years old, he had cherished for a short time the fantasy that he might be an airship fighter pilot (the Landissian war had just begun and such things were the stuff of high drama and fantasy in his child's mind) his father had swiftly disabused him of such ridiculous ideas. _

_Cid had sat his aggrieved son down and explained to him that as the only surviving Bunansa son and heir he could never do something so inherently dangerous as to learn to fly an airship. _

_Though Ffamran had come to accept such hard truths and even come to understand his father's reasoning deep down inside had burned, poked and re-ignited with every intricate study of new developments in aeronautic design he read about and with every one of the sketches that used to fill his akademy notebooks, the sparked of the distant ember of desire to one day learn how to fly. _

_One day……_

……_..one day……….but that day had never come. His father had said no. _

_Ffamran reached out to caress the control panel; his hands hovering over the steering levers with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. _

'Strahl.' _He whispered and no word in the history of any and all spoken languages had ever held such magick in it, such promise and possibility. _

'Strahl; _The_ Strahl. I shall make you beautiful my girl. You will be mine and no force in all Ivalice shall take you from me now.'

_Ffamran looked out at the smeared and muck encrusted windows of the cockpit; the wide planes of glass that were a pilot's window on the open sky and the bountiful freedom of a never ending horizon. _

_Those windows were obscured and blind at present but Ffamran knew suddenly that one day soon stars and clouds would pass by those clear and pristine planes. _

_In Ffamran's heart and soul a strange conviction took root as powerful and complete as the conviction that had come to him weeks ago at dinner with his father when he had decided that he must escape the misery his life had become or die to it. _

'Strahl,'

_That one word that encapsulated so many intangibles and so many unknowns; it was a word that meant, at least to Ffamran, freedom and choice and the promise of something different tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. _

_But more so than any of that, Ffamran knew, as he gave into temptation and the dreams that had so long been denied him, and sank into the dusty, torn pilot's chair and wrapped his hands around the inert steering levers, the Strahl was to him something that had seemed impossible and lost for good._

_The Strahl was hope and now that hope was his. _

_It was both equally ironic and characteristic of the Strahl and her future pilot's career together that the Strahl while undoubtedly a new found hope for her saviours future, would also prove to be the vessel of Ffamran mid Bunansa's ultimate condemnation. _

_Alas all that was yet to come but in that one moment, the last few hours of Ffamran Mid Bunansa's life before his name would forever be lost to history and his light eclipsed by the shadow who was to become him, Ffamran was happy._

_He was happy in his dreams that reality had yet to spoil. _


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter twenty-four: born in strife to die at peace

In the very centre of the wide central avenue of Nalbina Town which wound its circular route down the slopes from the Fortress curtain wall, a peculiar edifice had been swiftly erected by forty highly industrious and boisterously singing Moogles.

'Born we are to strife and war; hey-nonny, hey-ninny-nin.'

The Moogles sang as, bright coloured pom-pom plumes bobbing in time with their lusty singing, the furry stump winged creatures buzzed busily around the precarious pinnacle of cables, electrical wiring, wooden planks, and upended Moogling posts that rose from the centre of the avenue to resemble an enormous needle made of match-sticks.

'Live we do in this den of sin; hey-nonny, hey ninny-nin.'

From the top of the incongruous tower a fan of Moogling posts pointed outward in all directions like a halo, blinking with a strange misty illumination, framing the airship engine that had been 'liberated' from an abandoned military glider to power the extraordinary construct.

The glass and debris strewn paved road of the avenue thrummed and reverberated with the current of eldritch power flowing into, and from, the gigantic Moogling post.

'Be we fat or be we thin, hey-nonny-non, hey-ninny-nin. To live and die for kith and kin, hey-nonny, hey-ninny-nin.'

The people of Nalbina, having exhausted themselves in rioting, looting and general hysteria, now gathered in confused and anxious-eyed clumps watching the construction and whispering to each other.

Balthier, Hamish, Guido and Bethesda acted as shepherds herding and corralling the frightened people into semi-organised groupings ready for the imminent evacuation.

'Very merry we shall be to be born in strife to die at peace; hey-nonny-non, hey-ninny-nin.'

Balthier, bored of minding the group of dim-witted and dull-eyed civilians in his charge, was now loitering with intent by a shattered shop awning. He glanced over at Hamish as the other man approached with a barely repressed grin, 'Catchy little ditty, is it not?'

Hamish looked from Balthier to the joyous Moogle choir and shook his shaggy head, his blonde braids shivering over his shoulders with the gesture.

'Aye, catchy's one word for it.' He murmured, 'I will nae bother to ask how you came by a Moogle such as your Nono, the question's a moot point with you. Madness attracts madness as they say.'

Balthier raised his eyebrows articulately, 'Considering all I have done for you in the past and the immediate present, you are rather free with your criticism.'

Hamish almost smiled, 'It is not criticism; genius and madness run hand in hand. I know that I have profited from our association, Ffamran.'

'Hmm, yes,' Balthier murmured distractedly, 'it would be wise that you not soon forget that either.'

Hamish did not answer as he too was distracted by the rumbling, shuddering vibration of heavy artillery and innumerable feet pounding the ground up towards the city walls.

'They come. It begins.' Hamish growled unnecessarily.

Balthier had already taken off at a swift jog towards one of the low retaining walls of the town that had been left woefully unguarded when the remnants of the Nabradian forces stationed herein had abandoned the populace in favour of barricading themselves within the fortress.

Clambering up the rickety wooden ladder resting against the wall to reach the view tower Balthier was vaguely aware of being hounded up the wall by Bethesda snapping at his heels.

'Madam please, I know I am possessed of a magnetic personality but really, spare me a little breathing room if you would be so kind.' He purred glancing over his shoulder at the woman who snarled inarticulately in response. Balthier did little to repress or contain his (somewhat petty) amusement.

The sight that greeted Balthier and his most 'ardent admirer' once they reached the walled walkway of the battlements was not one he would soon forget.

From the trailing edges of the desert sands south of the Nalbina hill a solid phalanx of foot soldiers and armoured vehicles, serried rows of Nabradia war horses and armour plated Chocobos, marched in synchronicity with pike wielding Seeq infantry and Bangaa berserkers almost to the horizon.

In the very front of the advancing army, the flags of Dalmasca and Nabradia whipping in the sharp dusk breeze blowing up from the Highwaste to chase around the dusty, flinty red sands of the Nalbina basin, Balthier thought, narrowing his eyes for a closer look, that he saw the Crown Prince Rasler astride a Chocobo, sword aloft and glinting in the dying light like a target flare.

'Well now, Dalmasca to Nalbina Hill does come, I see.' He murmured ironically remembering an old quote from some manner of Archadian play and adapting it to the moment.

The sudden sinus shaking boom of displaced sound and air caused by the arrival of one of many Imperial light cruisers (_Ifrit_, harbinger of many a brutal battle, unless he was very much mistaken) over their heads, shook the very walls of the town to its foundations and galvanised Balthier back into action braking him from his thoughtful reverie.

It was just as well as with the usual lack of courtesy the Empire wasted no time in beginning the skirmish. Ifrit fired her cannons upon the advancing ranks of Dalmasca's pretty toy soldiers.

The back draft from the cannon's fire, so close to the wall walkway where Balthier and Bethesda cowered, covering their heads in a futile attempt to avoid instant incineration, sent a scolding wash of heat and metallic tasting Mist rushing like a vapour cloud along the battlements.

It seemed all of a sudden as if the entirety of Ivalice had narrowed down to this one battlefield, a town still full to bursting with people. The sky was eclipsed in a twisting maelstrom of opposing light airships, twisting and weaving like a haze of insects.

The quietude of early dusk was torn asunder with the squeal and shriek of steel on steel, as seemingly melting from the very purple shadows of the dusk, Archadian elite infantry sprang into action harrying and lunging at the ordered formation of the Dalmascan army like wolves attacking a flock of sheep.

As Ifrit passed overhead Balthier dared poke his head above the parapet and then, having seen nothing to his liking below him, he moved swiftly to grasp Bethesda's elbow and help her up.

'Time to go, wouldn't you say?'

He and she, all grievances momentarily surrendered in favour of survival, did not so much descend from the walkway as take a leap of faith through the air as the catapults of the Dalmascan forces obliterated the curtain wall to create a means for the Prince and his elite mounted guard to enter the town.

For a single moment, caught in the batting of an eye, in the infinitesimal eternity wherein Balthier felt as though he hovered suspended on thin air on the precipice of a long fall, he saw everything in a frozen, brilliant tableau seared into his brain in what might well be the last seconds of his life.

He saw above his head the swirl of iridescent Mist haloing the highest tower of the fortress; he saw the Paling rise and falter. He saw the Ifrit swerve away from battle, its mission accomplished and one engine trailing thick black smoke in its wake across the fire scorched sky.

He felt the prickling heat of combustion, nerves tickling with the visceral awareness that behind him and all around him rock and masonry spewed into the sky, the wall collapsing as if a giant's fist had struck a fatal blow.

He was aware of the tightness of Bethesda's grip on his hand as they leapt from the erupting wall and threw themselves into the arms of capricious fate.

Balthier felt the wind on his face and the insubstantial grip of the wind's many caressing fingers trailing over him as he, with an inevitability that was almost poetic, began to fall.

He heard the pop and crackle of the Moogles magnificent construct, that strange and gentle Magick that was more simple ingenuity than anything arcane, as below in the avenue the first batch of twenty children and pregnant women were spirited away in a flash of light and twinkle of disturbed air.

Balthier hit the canvas covering of the shop awning, one of the few still intact, with a bone jarring finality.

It was not so much training as the numbing force of the impact that caused his limbs to go limp as he rolled with the momentum off the awning and onto the glass quilted, gun fire pitted, paved ground of the avenue.

It was just typical of his blighted luck that fate should see fit to have Bethesda land heavily straight on top of him, crushing him face first into the jagged ground.

For a handful of seconds Balthier knew no more about anything; his head had struck the stone of the avenue with a certain forthright determination, after all, and sent him headlong into unconsciousness.

The crash and tingle of healing magick revived him from happy oblivion before he was ready to renew his performance.

'Ghhn, enough, enough I am awake.' Balthier flopped over, bonelessly, onto his back and waved a hand confusedly against the invasive rush of magick permeating his skin and riddling his bones.

Oh, how he hated magick.

Before he was ready, before his vision had cleared of dancing black and yellow spots, Hamish had hauled him to his feet.

Unsteadily Balthier raised a hand to his forehead and felt out the tender and deep gash that had opened up across his brow, now sticky and slicked with blood.

The ground trembled with metal booted feet and the clatter of heavy artillery rolling over all and sundry in its path as the Empire and the kingdom of Dalmasca fought in the very streets of the town.

'Foolish, boy; what were you thinking going up there? You near knocked the brains right out of your head.'

Hamish pounded Balthier on the back and nearly knocked him flat on his face again. Then the veteran soldier pivoted neatly on his heels, golden braids whipping about him like a crown of serpents, to impale on the end of his great spear an incautious Imperial soldier who had chanced upon two men in a war zone and thought to take for himself two easy kills.

Shaking the wits back into his head Balthier stumbled mutely after Hamish through the chaos, swooping down to pilfer a fallen soldier's rifle lying on the paving stones.

Unsurprisingly the enormous magickal tower in the centre of the avenue had attracted the attention of both sides of this war.

Archadia recognised it as a means of evacuating the townspeople and, having no wish to see a few thousand prisoners of war escape, sought to disable the device.

The Dalmascan forces, clearly seeing very little sense at all, believed the device a weapon of the Empire and sought to destroy it, unwittingly assisting in the destruction of Nalbina and her people.

'Captain what do we do?' Guido yelled as he kicked back one vicious Seeq covered in the colours of Dalmasca who had tried to grab a little boy of ten and tear him away from the Moogle device. 'Are we not on the side of Dalmasca?'

Balthier, running forward to help in the defence of the mechanism whose construction he had commissioned, suppressed a string of curses as he loaded and raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired indiscriminately at the hordes of killers in armour who did not spare the time to differentiate innocent children from armoured foe.

To Balthier, a man without a nation or any allegiance that could be measured in terms of king or country, the answer was simple.

This was war and anyone who came within spitting distance of the device and the sobbing, screaming civilians, desperately trying to thrust their children, their weak and infirm, their wives and their mothers, towards safety and freedom, were to be cut down like the fiends they were.

'Nay, we fight for the people. Protect the townsfolk, let Dalmasca to her fate. We can do no more.'

Hamish shouted over the thunderous din, spinning his spear and sending three Imperial's flying to the ground, their guts open and spilling their contents.

Yet it was all for naught in the end.

Balthier, forgetting the constant and rigorously maintained façade of sardonic cynicism that he used to insulate himself from the every day pains of real life, fought tooth and nail to protect the town's peoples only means of escape.

He picked up children of all species and all but threw them towards the glowing iris of distorted reality and Magick that formed the transportation field of the gigantic Moogling post.

He carried an old man on his back up a rickety, uneven platform towards the post and pushed the man, who was sobbing with relief and gratitude, into the glowing plane of light and away to somewhere better.

Side by side with Bethesda and Guido and Hamish Balthier struggled to hold back the tide of violence; the rippling mass of mindless, feral hate and death at the hands of soldiers who all looked the same from the wrong end of a sword's point.

Balthier fought, he tried his best and his hardest, he damned well _cared_ and still, ultimately, he failed.

From which side of the pointless skirmish the cannonade blast came from was neither here nor there.

All that mattered was that in a star burst of orange flame and the scream of magick and death the Moogling post tower was toppled and destroyed.

The magnificent construct built in the blinking of an eye by a group of Moogles who no one would ever remember for their selfless sacrifice hereafter, the brilliant pinnacle of ingenuity and compassion, crashed down into the avenue, aflame.

Those towns people who had been waiting to vanish away through the magickal portal ran screaming from the collapsing tower, chased by its burning, tumbling shadow.

Many were crushed under the very construct built to save them; many more ran screaming into the flashing blades and biting bullets of the two opposing armies.

Balthier, espying Nono in the midst of the danger, sprang into life moving like the wind in open defiance of the white heat inferno that erupted as mechanical components and Magick ignited, devouring the air to scorch the lungs.

Before his eyes Balthier saw his crewman's imminent death.

Nono and his brethren were still by the broken stump of their creation trying to damp the flames. Those anonymous Moogles were still trying to gather the people and continue with their work, heedless of their own peril, as above their heads one of the support pillars of the structure tore free of its broken moorings and crashed downwards.

'Nono!'

Balthier was a man who had been born to fly. He proved this now, in his fervour to reach his comrade Balthier threw himself through the air arms outstretched towards his diminutive compeer.

Colliding with the small furry body of his crewmen Balthier hit the ground with his shoulder, his arms encircling his amusing, enlightened business partner and clutching him closely and protectively to his chest as they rolled across the debris strewn stone road.

Sky pirate captain and crewman skidded across the cold stone and came to an undignified heap in the shadow of the raging inferno.

'Fantan, Momo, Tippolo!'

Nono wriggled free of Balthier's stunned hold, as his captain struggled to move for the pain of his impromptu heroics, and fluttered at speed over and around the sputtering fires breaking out across the flagstones.

Nono sped towards the tiny, still bodies of the three Moogles he had been standing with moments before.

Balthier stumbled up after Nono, aware of a sense of impending doom. As he staggered over to Nono Balthier looked up at the pulsing, coruscating profusion of magick that rose and spun from the top of the fortress' highest tower.

It looked fit to explode and Balthier did not need his own prodigious intelligence to surmise that he truly did not want to still be present when the fortress tower fell.

'Tippolo, kupo-po, Tippolo!'

Nono held the body of a cream coloured Moogle in a red tunic in his arms. The other Moogle was clearly dying, burned terribly and quite limp, yet the creatures emphatic black eyes were still wide open and clear.

'No tears, dear friend Nono. Kupo is worth it.' The other Moogle, Tippolo, shuddered hard and stifled a whimper of pain. Nono wept openly for a friend he had known no more than a handful of days.

'Kupo-po, you will be remembered. All of you will. When Kupo comes all will remember brave Tippolo, I promise, kupo, my friend.'

Tippolo sighed, little feet wriggling as if with contentment, 'Hey-nonny-non, hey-ninny-nin, very merry I shall be to live in strife to die at peace…..hey-nonny….hey…..'

The Moogle's last breath faded away on the last refrain of the song. Balthier crouched gingerly beside Nono and reached for the small, battered body of the fallen Tippolo.

'Kupo, kupo-po, he was my friend. Kupo-po.' Nono said sadly as he took his perch on his captain's shoulder. Balthier said nothing for there were no words to say.

Quietly, heedless of the violence and the death and chaos all around, Balthier found a bolt of thick canvas cloth left discarded on the bloody ground and, with Nono's silent aid, he gathered as many of the Moogles bodies as could be found or easily extracted from the wreckage of the giant Moogling post and wrapped them all in the sacking.

Balthier could not offer those brave Moogles dignity in death, as he bundled the little corpses in one huge sack that he then hefted over his shoulder, but he would save them from the anonymous, undignified fate of being burned like kindling or trampled under the feet of the Imperial soldiers.

'It's time to go, Nono. We have tarried over long on this benighted soil. The sky is calling.' Balthier whispered with none of his usual blithe cheer. 'I have had enough of war. Let the bastards fight and kill each other, it is no concern of ours.'

'……kupo….' Nono, drooping with his soft tears, agreed in quenched and muted voice.

Making his way to the Strahl, overburdened with his sack of dead heroes slung over one shoulder like a swag bag of cursed war spoils, Balthier could barely spare the energy to be relieved at discovering Hamish, Bethesda and Guido waiting for him.

He met Hamish' eyes and the older man nodded his head slowly, quietly reading Balthier's mind, as only a soldier accustomed to the depravity of war could, he agreed with Balthier's unspoken assertion.

'Aye; there is no more we can do here. I dare say there shall be no victory for either side in this travesty. Long shadows have been cast this day and the aftermath will be long felt.'

As Balthier pushed the Strahl upwards and away, barely noticing his own evasive manoeuvres as he expertly evaded the enemy airships that pursued him, the Nalbina fortress fell.

The back draft of the Mist explosion, like nothing Balthier had ever experienced before, rocked the Strahl and threatened to knock his precious ship off course as the wave of fire and Mist spread outwards racing through the sky away from the epicentre.

Balthier, not looking back as his passengers did, to see the Imperial cruiser fall from the sky and crush the fortress and most of the town, kept the Strahl steady and firmly on course.

The war was truly over now, almost before it had begun. It was over and done with to untold cost and very little immediate profit.

As the Strahl tore through the indigo sky towards the burgeoning dawn Balthier did something quite uncharacteristic considering his feckless and flighty nature. He made a promise.

The Empire would pay.

So swore the leading man to himself and to the boy he had once been and could not quite escape from; the boy who had sold his soul to escape the Empire's clutches.

Under the watchful eye of the rising sun, and any curious deities, the leading man promised that on that day, the day the Imperial war machine crashed and burned, _he_ would be there.

Balthier would be there to watch Archadia fall.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter twenty-five: Ffamran's Requiem; counting down to midnight

_A/N: Hello everyone……fifty reviews already! Thank you all so much. It's so nice to know people are still interested in this story after its three month break and I truly appreciate all the feedback; therefore I am giving you a double update, enjoy!_

_Oh, and Talim Hime, don't worry I promise no more Moogles will be harmed in the writing of this fiction ;)_

* * *

'Well son, speak up, what do you say, hmm?'

_Ffamran stood before the full length mirror in his father's bedroom with Cid's reflected visage, hands on hips, watching him keenly. _

_Ffamran studied his own reflection without a word; a myriad of thoughts tumbling through his mind as he considered his own form swathed in the new suit of clothes his father had had tailor made for him as an early birthday gift. _

'I appreciate the gift, Father, the cut is very fine.'

_Ffamran ran his fingers over the fine embroidery to the cuffs of the full length tailcoat in a pale shade of caramel stitched with burnished gold thread in intricate whorls and swirls running down the lapels, the hem, cuffs and seams._

_The tailcoat was heavy and restrictive but undeniably a work of sartorial art that the vanity in Ffamran (who had ever been particular about his apparel) could appreciate. _

_Cid nodded proudly, brushing his hands down his own exquisitely embroidered tailcoat in peacock blue and green. _'And the shirt is Ambervale cotton,' _Cid added with obvious pride, _'the Rozzarians have little to commend them but their textiles are undoubtedly exemplary.'

_Ffamran shrugged off the heavy tailcoat under the pretence of examining the hang of the pristine white sleeves of his shirt, but in truth he was growing intolerably hot in all this finery. _

_Ffamran had always had an eye for quality tailoring and fine but durable construction in his clothing but he had not been overly adventurous in his styles, favouring the high-necked jackets and frockcoats and tight fitted trousers and high boots common among his kinsmen, usually in autumnal tones designed to avoid standing out in a crowd. _

_He did not know quite what to make of the high necked leather and velvet sleeveless vest he now wore. The item of apparel seemed designed to make a rather obvious and bold statement, but of precisely what Ffamran did not wish to hazard a guess. _

_The white bib of cotton and lace that appeared to resemble a heart in some manner was a sharp contrast to the intricate, impossibly complex embroidery that seemed to have consumed the front of the vest, festooned with gilt thread, rich velvet vines in shades of sand and tan contrasting the lustrous, chestnut hue of the suede leather underneath and flamboyantly picked out with amber beads. _

_The whole edifice (for such a construct of stitchery could not be referred to as merely an item of clothing) was shockingly heavy, fastened and fitted to his narrow waisted frame with a staggeringly complex series of string ties lacing up his back to his shoulder blades._

_Every time Ffamran took a breath his lungs did battle with the leather held taut against his torso and in truth the vest appeared to him to be one of the most useless and ridiculously flamboyant pieces of apparel he had ever encountered. _

_If left to make his own choices Ffamran would never have even fleetingly considered wearing such a thing. So, why was it, he wondered whimsically, that he found himself rather liking how it looked on him? _

_The whole ensemble was so ludicrously eye catching that even Ffamran had trouble paying himself any attention in competition to the outrageous extravagance of the vest and the almost harsh contrasting plainness of the tight fitted dark trousers and the luminescence of the billowing sleeved white shirt. _

_It was absolutely perfect; the reflection in the mirror didn't look like Ffamran at all. _

That's because I'm not. _His reflection smirked at himself, idly stroking his hands down the heavy, over stitched, magnificence of the vest. _We are not Ffamran Mid Bunansa any more. Ironic isn't it that Father should provide us with our disguise, our costume, hmm?

_Ffamran grinned, or at least someone wearing Ffamran's familiar face, grinned. It was a quick, confident, greedy flash of sharp white teeth; it was a hungry, feral and eager grin that reflected back from the mirror. _

_Cid assumed that his son's pleasure was purely for the new suit; commissioned as a gift for his son that Cid hoped would encourage Ffamran to throw off the last vestiges of his childhood reticence in social circumstances and become a full part of the complex social scene in Archades that was so vital a part of advancement in this city. _

_Cid had long waited for the opportunity to use his son in such a way._

_The good doctor would have been marginally gratified to find he was half right in his summation, at least. _

_Nevermore, hidden and shielded by extravagant attire, would his son shy away from the centre stage; of course, nevermore would his son truly be his son, but that was neither here nor there. _

_The young man, with the secretive and sly smirk playing at the edges of his lips as he sauntered alongside his father under the sun dappled canopy of the tree lined avenues of Highgarden Terrace towards the skycab rank (refusing to sweat or wilt as the summer heat broiled him under the thick constraints of his new clothes), was not recognisable as solemn, coldly polite, but retiring, Ffamran Mid Bunansa. _

_Father and son disembarked the privately commissioned skycab at the edges of the Zaagabaath summer ranch. _

_The high wrought iron gates had been festooned with colourful balloons and the ivy covered red brick and spike topped walls enclosing the sprawling estate had been laced with garish streamers that fluttered in the ever present Archades summer breeze. _

_It looked disturbing like the estate had been decorated to celebrate a wedding, or more aptly, an imminent engagement._

_He who was formally Ffamran consulted his watch nonchalantly. It was near high noon._

_A missive in poor spelling (worse than Ffamran's own which, despite the best tutors and intensive instruction, was surprisingly bad) had arrived mysteriously amid his few personal affects in his Judiciary locker to inform him that Remus would be expecting the securities at the Judicial prison complex to be down and miracles to have been accomplished by midnight. _

_Thus he who was once Ffamran had twelve hours to conceive of, and orchestrate, a successful prison break. Strangely, instead of filling him with a sense of imminent doom and dread, he found himself feeling oddly elated. _

'Ffamran!'

_Senior and Junior Bunansa turned to meet Anna as she dashed down the wide pebble strewn path from the distant Zaagabaath summer ranch on the banks of the river Saraches towards them. _

_Anna looked lovely. Her auburn hair was twinned with white and green ribbon and she wore a high waisted low necked loose gown of pale green trimmed with white lace. She looked flush cheeked, sweet and pure, like a wood nymph. She also appeared openly delighted to see Ffamran. _

_Somewhere deep inside his heavily embroidered breast Ffamran's usurper felt just the slightest twinge of guilt. It lasted but an eye blink and then he stepped forward towards the still closed front gates, a surprisingly genial smile lighting his face. _

'Good afternoon Ms Anna.' _Even to his own ears his voice sounded different. _

_It was not a tone or inflection or any overt alteration. It was more a sense of confidence and assurance, a blithe certainty that rang in each sounded syllable of his speech, that anyone who was familiar with Ffamran Mid Bunansa would be surprised by. _

_Certainly Anna stopped short, taken aback both by the smile and the greeting and found herself flushing contentedly. She turned reluctantly from the object of her affections and addressed his influential father._

'Welcome Lord Bunansa. On behalf of my lord father and lady mother I humbly invite you to our home and hope that you will greatly enjoy the entertainments we have procured.'

_Cid chuckled lightly and cast a quick glance over to one side to a patch of empty air, _'Hear that Venat, eh? Entertainments.'

_Anna, awaiting Cid's expected formal response to her careful and proper greeting, frowned confusedly and looked to the innocuous patch of thin air. He who had once been Ffamran closed his eyes on a faint plea for patience and pasted a smile onto his face._

'On behalf of my lord father and myself, Ms. Anna, I humbly thank you and his honour Judge Magister Zaagabaath and your lady mother for your gracious hospitality.'

_Cid, roused from his silent communal with thin air, glanced over as his son finished the traditional polite Archadian greeting that he should have been making, with a befuddled expression._

'Hmm? Oh, indeed, indeed. Gracious indeed. Now my girl, where is Zavier? It has been many moons since we've talked.' _Cid grinned brightly and clapped his large hands together expectantly._

_Anna, still a tad confused, nevertheless opened the gates for the guests of honour and ushered both Bunansas' through. _

'Marvellous,' _Cid exclaimed to no one in particular for no obvious reason as he strode ahead up the path towards the house; passing through the beautifully manicured and maintained front lawns and knot gardens._

'Look, see there, Venat? That is Vernal Hawthorn, damned difficult to cultivate in the Archadian climate. Zavi was always green fingered.'

_He who was once Ffamran shook his head mournfully as his father blithely strode forward pointing out areas of horticultural interest to his imaginary friend as he went. _

_Anna stared after him in mute surprise. Slowly she turned her head to stare askance at Ffamran._

'What? Ffamran, is your lord father well? There is no one there to whom he speaks.'

_He who was once Ffamran sighed and with all the appearance of absent affection tucked Anna's hand into the crook of his elbow as they began making their sedate way up the path after the rambling Cid. _

'Yes I know. He's been like this for months. I find ignoring him is generally the best response.' _He who was once_ _Ffamran purred entirely untruthfully while wishing that it could have been so simple to merely ignore his father's rampant psychosis. _

_Anna did not seem to quite know what to say to this. However good breeding came to her rescue and she smiled faintly and nodded. She was a child of the aristocracy; eccentricity and peculiarity were nothing she had not contended with in the past. _

_Her father liked to sing to his houseplants, after all. _

'I am so pleased you could come today, Ffamran.' _Anna flexed her fingers shyly against the soft, pettable fabric of his coat sleeve. He who was once Ffamran smiled sweetly over at her, dark eyes glittering with some hidden humour._

'Oh, yes, me too.' _He purred, if nothing else it was convenient timing, he thought snidely. _'Have I mentioned you look lovely by the way? Green suits you.'

_The smile she rewarded him with could have dazzled the sun with its radiance. Then, remembering the coquettish mores of Archadian high-born courtship ritual, she demurely turned her head and moulded her smile into a more lady-like half-smile as she averted her gaze for fear of appearing to forward. _

'I am very flattered that you noticed.' _She simpered. _

_He who was once Ffamran found himself thinking back on that shared afternoon at Sobel Shore when Ms. Anna had been anything but demure and virtuous. Her half-hearted act brought a wicked smirk to his lips. _

_Anna, noticing the frankly indecently amused and dark smile playing over his features, flushed to the roots of her hair, well aware of what he was likely thinking about. _

'I…ah…I feel I must comment on your attire, as you have been so gracious in complimenting me. You are looking very fine today Ffamran.' _Anna blushed further when her stuttered pronouncement was greeted with a wicked, soft chuckle from him._

'Hmm, quite,' _Ffamran cast a furtive, heavy-lidded glance towards Anna as they approached the sprawling, one-storey house with the wrap-around porch filled to bursting with the well-to-do of Archadia sipping fine wines and nibbling expensive delicacies. _

_It was now or never; every second counting down to midnight. _

_Ffamran had never attempted to seduce a woman in his life; Ffamran's usurper did not hesitate to begin his artful, careful seduction of Anna Zaagabaath._

_He halted in his step and Anna, her hand held to his elbow, was drawn to a gentle halt as well. He cast a quick look about him for a spot of suitable seclusion. _

_They were close enough to the house to hear the rise and fall of conversation like the sonorous buzzing of bees rising from the porch, but still far enough away that they had yet to be noticed._

'I suppose you know that my father wishes to speak with yours about a marriage between us?'

_He who was no longer Ffamran would never be able to explain why he chose to start his career as a philanderer in such a way._

_He would never know if it was the time constraint or some vestige of his old impatience with social intercourse that inspired him to go straight for the jugular and never once release his quarry from his vicelike manipulation, or if it was simply a natural inclination towards ruthlessness? _

_Whatever the case may have been Anna jolted on the spot as if he had shot her dead centre in the chest. Her prettily painted face paling and then blushing brilliantly in genuine surprise that he should bruit the subject so directly. _

'I….' _Anna swallowed unable to make sense of the veiled regard in his dark eyes and the smile playing at his lips, _'yes, I did have some inklings that…um.….that is to say, that my mother would like…' _her voice died away. _

_He who was once Ffamran clasped her hand and led her calmly but commandingly into the leafy walled solitude of the small hedge maze in the gardens away from the house and any prying eyes or ears. _

'Your mother may well look favourably on a match between us; my father's star is in the ascendant, after all. You will be pleased to know my father is also agreeable to such.' _He who was once Ffamran smiled whimsically watching keenly the effect each languidly indifferent word had upon his prey._

_Waving a nonchalant hand and considering the merits of discarding the heavy and restricting tailcoat once and for all he who was no longer Ffamran continued in the same vein._

'Oh, I have no specific objections to a marriage to you either, why would I? You are very lovely.'

_He smiled with satisfaction as Anna's heart rate increased noticeably, her delectable bosom heaving as her breath came faster at this final, artfully inconsequential, remark hit her with the precision of an arrow piercing her heart. _

_It was a fairly damning indictment of his character, he was sure, that he was actually enjoying this game. _

'I would ask though, sweetheart, is this all you want? A wedding band on your finger at not quite seventeen, is there not more you crave?'

_Anna blinked puzzlement in her shining green eyes, _'But Ffamran I have loved you since we were fifteen. I have cherished thoughts that you would love me back for so long, why would I want more?'

_The last vestiges of Ffamran winced against such an open declaration of love that he knew he could not, and had no interest in, reciprocating. Paradoxically the new man in Ffamran's shell felt an ember of triumph stoke in his breast. He had her exactly where he wanted her; the hard work was all but done and he had needed to evoke very little effort. _

_She loved him so therefore, logically she would do whatever he wished if she thought it would lead to a marriage. He who was not Ffamran smiled sweetly._

'Did you? I find that hard to believe, you never lacked for male admirers in Akademy, I remember being quite unwilling to risk terrible embarrassment by approaching you then.' _He lied silkily. Ffamran had barely cared to notice the talkative dim-witted girl who was always smiling vacuously at him in the lecture auditoriums. _

_Stars and joy reflected in the girls green eyes. The distant throb of self-reproach barely penetrated his thoughts as he continued to play the poor girl with the expertise of a master musician. _

_Somewhere deep inside Ffamran rebelled against this act of cruelty against one who did not deserve it, but the twisted, angry, restless spirit possessing him did not care. This was necessary. This was a prison break of a different sort with every second ticking down to midnight._

_The chrysalis needs must be shattered before the butterfly could emerge. Let the land grub wither and all his frustrated dreams with him. He who was no longer Ffamran wanted to fly. _

_Piece by tiny piece, with every word, he who was no longer Ffamran was tearing apart everything he had been. The polite, courteous to his elders, dutiful son was tearing himself to shreds with every second ticking down to midnight._

_He was ripping the fragments of Ffamran Mid Bunansa to shreds in an act of wicked catharsis. The nameless person he had become hoped to hollow out enough space inside his soul to finally _become_ himself. _

'Anna do you never want more from your life? There is more to life than the Empire, more to life than marriage and tea parties and the influx of upstart of Landissians trying to enter Archadian society.' _He exclaimed with honest passion even as he suspected it would do no good. _

_Abruptly changing tact he who was no longer Ffamran decided on a little smidgen of honesty, he stepped forward and rested his hands lightly on Anna's shoulders._

_Anna stared at him clearly perplexed, _'But Archades is my home; the Empire is my home. I am very happy and I know that I am born privileged and fortunate, why would I want more?'

_A ripple of pure dismay disturbed the deep layers of new growth that had consumed the mind of he who was once Ffamran. Vaguely he recognised it as the last gasp of disappointment as what was left of Ffamran realised just how incompatible he and Anna would truly have been….and he had not ever really realised he had sought compatibility. _

_Dismay transformed into a surge of annoyed anger however at the insular and narrow scope of the girl's experiences. How could anyone be content to live their life blinkered and docile, accepting a version of Ivalice and the natural order that only existed in the schemes and political biased of a self-interested Imperial power? _

_It was not an act when he who was once Ffamran turned away from Anna and started down one of the narrow hedged lined paths in the neat alleys of the hedge maze, burrowing deeper into the heart of the maze._

'Ffamran,' _Anna cried after him, sounding truly bereft as he turned from her. She quickly ran after him in her soft soled shoes with the delightful silver bows. _'Why are you angry? What is it that you want?'

_He stopped short drawn up sharply like a racing Chocobo pulled up lame at the last hurdle. _

_What is it that he truly wanted? What had driven him to do what he had done and drove him further still to do things that were against the principles of civil obedience and honourable conduct he had been raised to obey? _

_What is it that I want?………._

………_More….….I just want more. _

_He wanted more than this life, more than the confines of the Empire. More than the armour of the Judgehood that cared not a whit for evidence and justice. _

_Slowly he turned around towards the girl a solemn light in his steady dark gaze that was to Anna the first familiar and recognisable response she had received from him since he had arrived._

'Do you really care?' _Ffamran asked her without the artifice of his other self. This was his requiem; his last chance to be heard. _

'Of course I do!' _Anna clasped her hands together tightly, palms pressing firmly against each other. In truth she was a little scared by the course of this conversation but it was a good sort of fear, more akin to excitement, which she had long associated with him. _

_Ffamran had always been different than the rest of their class in Akademy, after all. _

_She had always seen it. Something waiting, restless but contained, behind his secretive eyes. He had always reminded her of a sleeping behemoth or some such fearsome wild creature, that she had heard tell existed far from the safe confines of Archades. _

_Ffamran had been dormant, sleeping, in Akademy., Now she thought he was finally waking up and the thought excited her even as his strange anger, his seeming distaste for their home and everything that was dear and familiar to her, disturbed Anna greatly. _

_He who was Ffamran but also not stretched out a hand to her in a gesture that was too nonchalant to be beseeching while also too cool to be an invitation. Instead the offered hand appeared almost like a challenge. _

'Ffamran what do you really want?' _Anna whispered, sensing and fearing that she was not the answer._

'I want to fly.' _He told her simply. _

_Anna, aware in some vague sense that his words meant more than she would ever understand, found her voice squashed down to a thready whisper in response to an impeding sense of dread and excitement. _

'What does that mean? Fly where?'

_He who was no longer Ffamran shrugged, _'It really does not matter. It is never about the destination. Flying is not a means of reaching one point on the map or another. It is something more than that to me.'

'I don't understand.' _Anna looked ready to cry, fragile and unprepared in her pretty green dress with the ribbons in her hair. _

_Ffamran's usurper still held his hand out to he; half a bridge between them which did not so much lessen the golf separating them as emphasise it. He needed her help but finally he realised that even without it he would still fly. _

_He was already flying in his own mind; flying free of his old life with every second ticking down to midnight. _

'Then come with me and find out. For once in your life, Anna, don't be a child of Empire and come fly with me.'

_He smiled at this girl he might, just might have married, had he been different; had he not been born to fly. It was an honest smile and it had sharp edges. _

_Anna paused affected by the tremor of genuine passion in his voice. She had the sense to realise that it wasn't passion for her but not enough sense to harden her heart to the persuasive, intoxicating suggestion in his eyes. _

'In an airship?' _She knew how he loved those; he could almost see the wheels turning in her head._

'No, it's not that sort of flying.' _He admitted gently. _

_A tremor of fatigue was trying to work its way down his arm but he refused to let it show as he kept his hand held towards her an in invitation. Still he was half hoping she would refuse, if only for her own sake. _

'Then how would we fly?'

_The smile grew deeper as he watched her falling, curiosity and infatuation making her decisions for her, just as he knew they would. Temptation was a dangerous thing. It came in so many forms. _

'Come with me and find out.'

_Anna shuffled awkwardly in her slippered feet, wiping her hands awkwardly down her skirts, _'Father would be annoyed if we leave the party. I'm sure we have already been missed.'

_He who was once Ffamran couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that. If all went according to plan Judge Magister Zaagabaath was going to be considerably more than 'annoyed' when this day was done. _

'Then if we are missed already, we may as well take the opportunity to be missed for a purpose rather than simply because those present have not the wits to come and look for us.'

'But this party is for our benefit. Mother hopes to announce our engagement.' _Anna argued disconcerted but mildly intrigued all the same. _

_There is no engagement; there never will be. He thought but did not say. He was not quite so cruel or tactless as to do such. _

'Then let them.' _He exclaimed instead, throwing up his hands in exasperation that was only partly feigned._ 'Let them make any announcement they wish. It is they who will do the talking, they who will take the credit. For one day, Anna, live for something other than your parents' pleasure and come with me.'

_Anna dithered in a quandary of indecision, _'Will we be gone long? Father worries terribly if I break my curfew.' _She added fretfully. _

_Ffamran smiled darkly, _'No later than midnight, sweetheart.'

_He repressed a dark laugh when he saw her eyes widen at the mention of such a late hour. He shrugged as best he could with his hand still extended towards her._

'This is flying, Anna, you can't fly with a curfew. I promise you it will all be done by midnight and you can go back to being simply you, Ms. Anna Zaagabaath, once more. You never have to fly again, if you do not wish it.'

_Anna reached for his hand, her own hovering just an inch from his. He could feel the warmth of her palm as she hesitated one last time. _

'And we shall not get into trouble?'

_As the seconds ticked down to midnight he who was once Ffamran wrapped his hand around hers, capturing her one hand in both of his. _

'I promise you will not get into any trouble.' And they shall never catch me_, he added silently as he pulled Anna into his arms to tie up the loose ends of this complex cage of seduction with a kiss._

_All the while the seconds ticked, inexorably, down to midnight. _

* * *

_A/N: next up, what's in a name? The introduction of 'Balthier' and the long awaited prison break begins!_

_. _


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Six: Never come between a pirate and his partner and his headhunter

_A/N: Hello all, just a reminder that this chapter is part of a double update, if you are just 'clicking on' please don't miss out on the preceding Chapter! ;)_

* * *

The festivities had already commenced when Balthier reached the private small isle just off the coast of Balfonheim that had once belonged to Remus and was now occupied by Einar.

The Strahl was too conspicuous a target to risk flying down to the Isle whose only land mark was a tall lighthouse tower perched atop the jagged spike of land that formed Einar's hideout, therefore Balthier had 'borrowed' a small fishing boat to make the quick gaunt across from the mainland.

Of course escaping with speed and suitable safety would be a difficult undertaking but as he had yet to formulate a sensible plan to locate and liberate Fran without significant risk to his life, the point was somewhat redundant in any event.

He would simply improvise. The stratagem had worked well enough in the past.

Setting foot on the small, sturdy wooden jetty, Balthier looked up at the steep, narrow and twisted foot worn path that wound its way up towards the cluster of small shacks that huddled in the shadow of the lighthouse above him on the cliff top.

The dull thud and rumble of distant explosions coupled with the bright phosphor sparks of gun fire lit up the dull, grey, rain washed afternoon. Clearly arriving fashionably late had been as advantageous as he had hoped.

The fun and games were well underway.

Evidently, as hoped, the myriad headhunters that had responded to Marybelle's notice had already begun fighting each other and, hopefully, whatever hired muscle Einar had gathered around himself.

Balthier could only continue to hope that the seeds of chaos he had sown would be enough of a distraction that he, and his prize scalp, would be able to sneak by and rescue Fran without detection.

It was a slim hope at best but the leading man had survived on less and triumphed in the past.

Hoisting his rifle to his shoulder Balthier made his way carefully up the sloping path, fishing out the Bangle from his small knapsack of emergency supplies and activating the Libra spell held within the accessory.

It would be the height of embarrassment if he had the misfortune to step on a Sten Needle trap and mutilate himself irreparably within a few moments of setting foot on this gods' forsaken rock.

Fran would never let him hear the end of it if he ended up captured in the event of trying to rescue her.

Balthier was entirely too paranoid and suspicious a person to be gratified or relieved that he did not encounter either traps or miscreants out for his blood on the approach to the cliff wall below the lighthouse.

The very lack of difficulty simply suggested to him that greater danger lurked unseen further ahead.

After checking the Bangle to make sure the thing was working correctly (he was even more leery of Magick imbued accessories then he was the spells themselves) Balthier unwound the supple rope and grapple gun that he had wound around and around his waist for ease of transport and proceeded to put together the gun mechanism that would fire the grapple hook up into the rock face allowing him to climb to the top and thus avoid the treacherous upper reaches of the cliff face path.

Balthier was an athletically fit man in his very prime of life even so, he did not relish the climb up the sheer, white chalky face of the miserable cliff. It was slow, difficult, tedious work, not to mention the cliff face left scuff marks on his patented rawhide leather trousers.

With every scrabbling foothold and muscle straining reach for a higher handhold he strained his dull Hume senses for the sounds of oncoming danger.

Should anyone begin to walk down the winding slope towards the jetty they would easily espy Balthier, clinging to the cliff face like a fungal growth, utterly vulnerable to a long range attack from below.

Still, there was no other way of reaching the top, save risking walking straight into a crowd of violent mercenary killers all looking to push him off this mortal coil if he took the more mundane beaten path up the cliff.

Hands bloody (he had, stupidly, lacked the foresight to wear gloves before ascending the rough cliff face) and arms and legs aching from exertion (he hated mountaineering) Balthier was almost to the top and could see the tufted grass fringe at the edge of the cliff above him when the rope, still around his waist (his safety line), went alarmingly slack.

_Oh, bugger._

As the grappling hook and part of the severed line dropped past his head (narrowly avoiding braining him) Balthier looked up to the top of the cliff edge to see four reptilian Bangaa faces leering down on him.

_At least I was right; worse was waiting at the top. _

The lead Bangaa, blue braids hanging down past his savage snout, bared his sharp teeth in a snarled smile, 'Balthier, whoreson, we got'cha now.'

His retinue of fellow Bangaa's snickered insidiously as Balthier clung to the rock face somewhat helplessly.

Realising that there was in fact only two options left available to him, one being to let go of the cliff face and fall to the ground, and the other to continue climbing (a third option of simply clinging mutely to the jagged rock waiting for the blue Bangaa to sever his head from his body was swiftly rejected – the leading man could never be so passive in his own fatality) Balthier decided to choose the latter, in his own imitable style.

'Forgive me, but have we actually been formally introduced?' he grunted politely in response to the lead Bangaa's less than civil greeting, as he struggled to find handholds to haul his way up, all the harder now he could no longer use his grapple rope to help him along.

One of the other Bangaas, the female judging from size and markings, poked her rifle over the scraggy edge of the cliff menacingly. 'What yer doin'?'

Balthier looked up at her and then to her brethren with open irritation; nothing annoyed him more than a bloody stupid question asked at an inopportune time.

'Climbing,'

He grunted ignoring the rifle and reaching out for the edge of the cliff to start to haul himself up over the edge onto solid ground. He would feel considerably better facing his potentially imminent demise with his own two feet planted firmly on solid ground.

Balthier sucked in a sharp breath of air when the lead Bangaa stepped, deliberately and with judicious application of weight, on his fingers as Balthier scrabbled for purchase, fingers clawing in the tough grass fringe of the cliff's edge.

'Why sssshould we let you up? We are here to kill you. We could just let you fall.'

Balthier, steeling himself against the instinctive desire to yank his hand away from under the Bangaa's metal soled boot and thus lose his balance and fall from the cliff, looked up at the blue scaled, foul smelling, mercenary before him with what he hoped was a suitably contemptuous lack of concern.

'And then you will have to prove that you did indeed kill me and I did not in fact die by misadventure or suicide. I assume Einar has put such a clause in your contract, hmm? The sack of lard is an idiot but not quite that much of an idiot.'

The blue braided Bangaa narrowed his eyes as Balthier crouching down to peer at him, Balthier was now almost at the cliffs top. The Bangaa (whose name Balthier could not remember for the life of him) smiled with a certain cold-blooded cunning.

'Then we will ssshoot you first and let you fall. No one will claim sssuicide or accident when yer head isss full of holess.'

_Damn._

Balthier blinked in surprise, momentarily wrong footed mentally as the female Bangaa levelled her rifle at his head. For a split second Balthier thought he might actually die, unable to work out an argument against the Bangaa's plan.

Then, mere seconds separating Balthier from his eternity, an angry shout rang out from above and all four Bangaa turned their heads to face the direction of the cry.

Balthier wasted no time grabbing hold of the edge of the cliff with his free hand and kicking ferociously with scrabbling feet to haul himself up and over the top of the cliff. He managed, quite pleasingly, to kick one of the male Bangaas in the head as he threw his leg up and over and rolled onto solid ground.

Pandemonium ensued.

As Balthier rolled awkwardly to his feet the four Bangaas had already been engaged in battle by a group of leather clad and heavily tattooed Humes who were, presumably, rival headhunters after his head.

Balthier smiled contentedly to himself (it always gave him a warm feeling inside when a plan fell out just as he had hoped) as he scarpered as fast as his fatigued legs would carry him, ducking low to avoid random strafing fire and the odd hand held incendiary device flying through the air.

'There – over there – I see the blighter!'

Balthier skidded to a halt as a bullet bit into the flint and chalk ground at his feet, spitting up a shower of sharp shards of stone.

A petite Hume woman with long auburn hair wearing a tight fitted clearly custom made outfit of dyed red leathers and chain mail stood blocking his path to the fortified Lighthouse tower.

With a feral grin and nary a word she raised her rifle and fired directly at Balthier's head. He dropped to the ground as the bullet zipped overhead to embed itself in the bark of one forlorn and lonely looking apple tree behind him.

The vibration of approaching feet rattled through the ground as Balthier rolled away from another gun shot that pock marked the ground where he had fallen moments earlier.

Staggering to his feet Balthier was forced to throw himself backward in an entirely unintentional backwards rolly-polly to avoid an axe blow from an obscenely muscular bald man that would have cleaved his head in twain.

Seconds lately Balthier found himself suffocating as a supple whip wrapped around his neck like a thick banded garrotte. A high singing in his ears indicated imminent loss of consciousness as his air supply was completely obstructed.

_Of all the blasted luck; I survive two warzones only to die in a skirmish of my own design. Bravo Balthier, bravo. _

In desperation Balthier, who could see nothing except the star bursts of red as his capillaries and blood vessels burst in his eyelids, rolled across the ground towards the whip wielder.

The confused gambit worked as the whip grew lax as the wielder reacted in surprise at his peculiar response to throw himself into the path of his aggressor.

Balthier, only able to see the faint outline of his attacker through his narrowed eyes, kicked upward two-footed and slammed his feet into the face of his assailant who cried out in a worryingly feminine voice and dropped the whip.

Tearing the loose lengths of knotted leather from around his bleeding throat and sucking in a choking swallow of air Balthier had little time to savour it as he was once again flung into another battle for his life.

He avoided the downward struck of the two headed axe bit into the ground beside him through sheer luck over any conscious design.

Balthier kicked the axe wielding man, who came at him again, in the groin, grabbed for his axe and tore it from his assailant's hands. He swung the unfamiliar weapon in a wide clumsy arc at another man, armed with a six-fluted pole, who had slipped up on him from behind.

Balthier may not enjoy melee fighting but he _had _gained instruction in brutal warfare from no less an esteemed man of violence than Judge Magister Bergen. Now there was a man who knew how to fight dishonourably.

Severing the six-fluted pole in two Balthier staggered to his feet slammed the end of the axe's handle into the gut of the rifle wielding red-headed woman with considerable force (gentleman he may be but Balthier was of the opinion that a lady trying to riddle his body with lead shot was no lady at all) then turned a little dizzily on his heel and ran to the extent of his ability away from the incapacitated pack of killers.

He was beginning to think that perhaps he had not fully considered all the inherent pitfalls of inviting a battalion of armed killers, all out for his blood, to this rescue mission.

Balthier felt somewhat akin to a lone Nabreus Fox on an island of bloodthirsty hounds.

The Bangle still around his wrist thrummed with a diffuse warning heat that swiftly increased to an uncomfortable burning as Balthier staggered across the balding, dusty ground, towards the small collection of dwellings where he hoped Fran was being held.

He was moving at such speed that as he twisted to avoid headlong collision with the hidden traps he fell heavily on his side with a jarring impact that rattled his spine.

Responding to the Libra Bangle's warning, he threw himself violently out of the path of a line of explosion traps that glowed faintly pink as the magick took affect.

A shooting pain in his left hip from his hard landing caused Balthier to consider briefly if he had crippled himself for life.

Sadly he had no time to even reach for his knapsack and the collection of curatives held within before a burning Bomb fragment landed right in the centre of the cluster of underfoot explosion traps.

Balthier's eyes grew wide as he looked up from that burning Bomb fragment to the grinning Bangaa just beyond the minefield who smiled and waved belligerently at him.

Balthier swore, loudly and passionately, scrabbled to his feet despite the pain, twisted with all the agility of a Couerl, and lunged for safety as the Bomb fragment ignited and set off the explosion traps in turn.

The ensuing explosion sent Balthier, and much of the local flora, flying through the air several feet to crash in a smoking, pained heap, into a bed of sadistically conveniently placed stinging nettles.

For a moment after landing, despite the stinging annoyance of the plants against the bare skin of his face, Balthier simply lay panting for air, face down on the ground.

Unfortunately fate did not intend to allow Balthier a moments respite as he was roughly grabbed by the straps of his vest and knapsack and hauled to his feet, only to be then punched squarely in the jaw and knocked, head spinning, back down again.

'Ssssneaky Hume. I ssshall enjoy killin' you sssslowly, Balthier.'

Balthier looked up at the blue skinned Bangaa and quite suddenly remembered the reprobate's name.

'Ba'Gamnan.' He rolled the unpleasant syllables on his tongue, swilling the name about while rolling his bruised jaw.

The ugly overgrown lizard grinned at him, leaning on his currently inoperative rotating saw weapon.

'You remember me, I am flattered Massster Balthier.' The Bangaa gave him a mocking bow.

Balthier eyed the bloodied and bruised headhunter and his monstrous weapon warily as he lay, sprawled out on the ground on his back, struggling to gather his wits.

All things considered, Balthier mused irreverently, this had been a very _bad_ few weeks.

Behind Ba'Gamnan his cohorts spread out in a loose circle watching the compass points for any rival headhunters.

'Do you mind if I sit up? This is a trifle uncomfortable.' Balthier inquired dryly and then proceeded to lever himself up into a sitting position. He was in quite exquisite discomfort.

'You do realise of course that you won't be able to enjoy my death for long, once the other headhunters discover you, hmm?' He added slyly closely watching Ba'Gamnan, as he suspected that the leader was the most dangerous of the quartet.

The blue braided Bangaa glared suspiciously, 'They will not be able to sssstop me killin' you.'

Balthier smirked, fastidiously raising a hand to wipe away the trickle of blood from his split lip. 'No, but that is beside my point. Do you not suppose that the rest of your august competitors will not be a tad put out to discover you have beaten them to the kill?'

'To the victor go the sssspoilssss.' Ba-Gamnan sneered hissingly.

Balthier resisted the impulse to roll his eyes and scoff at the Bangaa's lack of insight.

'Only if he survives to claim them, Ba'Gamnan, and I sincerely doubt you will. When the rest of that rabble discover my corpse in your possession they will stop at nothing to take it from you so that _they_ may claim the kill.'

Balthier noticed with a gleam of triumph Ba'Gamnan's compeers twitch and look about them a little more furtively as his meaning filtered through their thick heads.

'Tell me, do you know how many other headhunters are here on the island? Thirty, forty perhaps; and there are but four of you, already injured, and perhaps Einar, if he has not fled the island already. Those are not the greatest odds.'

Balthier watched as his careful words weaved their spell casting doubt in the minds of his would be killers. He kept his smile on the inside even as he wondered if he could escape imminent and unpleasant death after all.

Ba'Gamnan shook his scaly head and bared his teeth in vicious defiance. 'We sssshall take our chancessss, though I thank yer for yer concern.' Without further ado Ba'Gamnan started up his whirring saw toothed weapon.

'O'course yer be dead anyway sssso it makessss no difference t'yer.'

Advancing slowly Ba'Gamnan and his cohorts, weapons drawn in anticipation of the imminent slaughter, began to laugh coldly. Balthier waited for divine intervention to assist him as he was out of all other avenues of escape.

For perhaps the first time in his life the divine seemingly answered him. An explosion from above rocked the quartet of scaly killers off their feet as the Lighthouse erupted in flame.

The top portion of the lighthouse tower had exploded in a shower of broken giant crystal and white washed masonry that showered down from on high a few scant yards from where Balthier and his would-be killers froze in a tableau of prey and predator.

Thanking the gods he did not in fact believe in Balthier leapt to his feet, pain forgotten in his desire to escape, and began to run head long towards the collapsing lighthouse tower.

As he vaulted over a small stone retaining wall and advanced on the lighthouse with the hole in its upper reaches, Balthier looked upwards with no little anxiety, knowing in his soul that somehow Fran was responsible for the pyrotechnics in the lighthouse tower.

She would have been waiting, he was sure, for the right distraction to enact her own escape. A woman of Fran's calibre would never wait passively for someone else to save her.

This suspicion was confirmed when his straining eyesight caught the dark and limber silhouette with the long, elegant ears, leap from the flame wreathed crater in the lighthouse wall.

In Balthier's (admitted biased) opinion there was little Fran could not do. However, unless he was very much mistaken, the Viera were not physiologically endowed with wings or any other means of independent flight.

Thus, chillingly, he now saw that Fran was in free fall.

The sight of his partner twisting like a serpent in thin air, her white hair like the tail of a comet trailing behind her against the background of the drizzle soaked dull stormy sky, was intimately and immediately seared into his consciousness as Balthier defied the physical limits of Hume physiology to reach her.

'Fran!'

Balthier stretched out his arms to catch his partner as he somehow managed to bridge the gap between them and position himself, in the last seconds before impact, underneath her.

It would be the second time in twenty-four hours that a woman had landed on him and it hurt no less for the fact that this time it was Fran.

That was Balthier's only coherent thought as Fran fell into his arms with an artful grace that defied credulity. The curtain of her white hair obscured his vision as it covered him and the force of impact tumbled them both to the ground.

There was a moment of stunned stillness.

Balthier, flattened and crumpled under his reclaimed partner, could not move even if he had the wits left to him to try. Fran, gathering her equilibrium and daring to raise her head and sweep her unbound hair from her face, peered out at what calamity Balthier had brought on his heels.

The sight that greeted both Balthier and his partner, when both were able to behold their situation, was not a welcome one.

Ba'Gamnan and his cohorts were attempting to fight off at least forty assorted Hume, Seeq and Bangaa headhunters all brandishing weapons and baying for the pirate Balthier's blood.

From behind them the doors to the ruined lighthouse were knocked apart and a furious, decidedly singed, Einar, came roaring through the doors his cudgel raised in fury.

'….Damn yer bunny-girl, I'll rip yer ears off…!'

Fran, on her feet, looked down on her partner, who despite having been at liberty this last three days, looked in far worse a state of disrepair than Fran who had, supposedly, been at Einar's not very great mercy all this time.

Fran raised one, profoundly eloquent, eyebrow in the tiny, transient moment before either Einar or the blood thirsty rabble rolled over the two of them.

She needed to say no words to fully express her feelings at that juncture in time.

Balthier, who had noticed and quietly rejoiced that Fran appeared in good health, all things considered, with no noticeable injuries, nevertheless shrugged awkwardly in response to her unspoken question and reproach.

'This all seemed like a good plan at the time Fran.' He squirmed against her droll regard.

'Foolish Hume,' Fran murmured with gentle scolding, reaching out a hand to haul Balthier to his feet as he readied his rifle. 'You have much to learn when it comes to the art of rescue, Balthier.'

Fran's swift magick in casting Protect deflected a barrage of arrows from numerous archers as the two opposing sides, both equally bent on rending Balthier limb from limb, advanced like a murderous tide on either side of the two pirates.

With impeccable tactical sense and synchronicity of movement Balthier and Fran both began to run. The rabble, in the manner of bloodthirsty rabbles, gave chase.

Balthier glanced impatiently up at the storm laden rain clouds as he and Fran tried to wriggle out of the middle of the chaotic free for all Balthier had deliberately orchastrated. He caught a glimpse of yet another salvation from above and smirked.

'So you say, Fran, or perhaps you underestimate my gift for the dramatic last minute reprieve.'

It was at that moment that the Strahl dropped, with a roar of her engines and the crackle of her wings retracting from the thick, thunderous cloud covering, and swooped down in a low arc towards the ground, scattering startled and alarmed headhunters who immediately expected the ship to open fire.

However that would be far to cliché for the leading man's refined tastes. He had planned something quite different as a final means of miraculous escape.

Into the very centre of the melee the Strahl dropped anchor while still swooping low to the ground. The heavy, decorative anchor tore up the flinty, chalky ground and cut a path of escape for Fran and Balthier to follow.

Grapping hold of the thick links of the anchor chain, as the Strahl lurched upwards into the air once more before the astounded mercenaries and the incensed Einar had time to react, Balthier and Fran climbed hand over hand up towards the open hatch of the Strahl's underbelly.

Balthier clambered into the cargo hold of the Strahl and helped to pull Fran in after him before they winched up the anchor together and closed the hatch in comfortable silence.

The Strahl roared forward and away under the careful watch of the ever faithful Nono and following Balthier's careful and previously in-putted instructions to the Strahl's autopilot controls.

Kneeling opposite one another on the floor of the Strahl's hold, still stacked with the stolen loot from the Mayor of Itgar and Hamish' payment of seventy thousand Gil, Balthier allowed himself a large, self-satisfied grin as he looked across to Fran.

'Well Fran, what do you say about that rescue now, hmm?'

Fran, with the dignity that was an intrinsic part of her being stood up, tossed her rain dampened and wildly free flowing hair over her shoulders to roll down her back and sauntered, with all the grace and carriage of a goddess, towards the door to the hold without a single word spoken.

As she pushed open the bulkhead door she paused, looked disdainfully over her shoulder, and raised one eyebrow provocatively. Her eyes sweeping him up and down in a swift glance that took in every lump, bump and bruise he had attained since they had been separated.

'I stand by my initial assessment; you need more practice. I find your technique to be lacking and your timing lax.'

And then she was gone and Balthier was left to laugh to himself for the simple joy of having his world set to rights once more and his partner by his side.

* * *

_A/N: Next up revelations galore; Fran tells the story of how she came to leave the Wood. _


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dungeons and liars; how to betray your sweetheart

'This is all rather exciting isn't it?'

_Looking up from the security terminal he had been glowering at in impotent annoyance, he who was once Ffamran, speared a sharp look up at Anna._

'Exciting is not quite the word I'd use.' _He muttered with a soft but heart-felt epithet of relief and mounting tension as he finally gained access to the terminal drive only to discover it pass code locked. _

_The scent of lavender tickled his nostrils as Anna crowded close to him to peer over his shoulder at the blinking screen._

'Galbana.'

_He turned to her momentarily perplexed by the incomprehensible utterance, _'Pardon?'

_Anna smiled, _'Galbana, as in the Lily. That is father's code. You know what a passion for botany father has.'

No, I didn't_, he who was once Ffamran thought with a slight rising of his spirits, _and I would never have considered (or known enough about) botany to decipher the codes.

_With genuine appreciation he smiled, bowed, and ushered Anna toward the console with a sly wink. _'Where would I be without you, sweetheart?'

_Anna, who had warmed to the idea of some (completely innocent and innocuous, he assured her) mischief after hours in the Judiciary barracks, giggled and stepped forward to tap in the code proudly._

'What are you looking for?' _Anna twiddled a long lock of hair around her finger as he swiftly cycled through electronic commands to find a map of the holding cells and the current location of Hamish and the guard contingent on that floor._

'I'll know when I find it,' _he murmured distractedly, glancing at his wristwatch more out of habit than any real desire to know how little time he had left. _

_Ten minutes past ten; he had just less than two hours to enact his somewhat complex plan._

_It had taken considerably longer than he had hoped to inveigle Anna into a mood where she would agree to assist him in his endeavour (not that she actually knew the truth of what he intended to do) and now his back was against the metaphorical wall._

_Aha! _

_The electronic map of the barracks holding cells flickered up on the console screen, a red blip on the monitor illustrating Hamish' stationary position in one of the solitary cells designated for those condemned to die. Green moving spots on the grid clearly denominated the few guards permanently stationed to walk the metal corridors like truncheon wielding wraiths. _

_He who was once Ffamran smiled thinly. He knew from bitter experience that those placed on that particular duty (redundant as a form of security for the laser grids and trip wire sensors made sure no unauthorised person could enter the lower confines) were hoplites hoping for promotion or the lowest tier of Judges. _

_Thus those guarding Hamish were likely to be young, overly eager but under-qualified soldiers, or disaffected and resentful young men much like Ffamran himself. There was also a good chance he knew most of them. _

_With swift and dexterous fingers Ffamran tapped in a command to the main system control terminal (using Ghis' codes which Ffamran had stolen long ago for no particular reason other than to prove he could)._

_The command would automatically change the access codes on this terminal and all those outside the building; thus rendering the barracks inaccessible to anyone, even those who thought themselves in possession of the codes._

_Once finished he who was once Ffamran snuck a sideways peek at Anna, who was smiling faintly and studying the communication relays and power consoles in the small hub-room with a mixture of polite interest and incomprehension, the picnic basket they had picked up on their way to the barracks resting on her arm._

'Ready?'

_He turned off the console (having memorised the number of the duty officers on guard that night) and swept Anna up on his arm, giving her a squeeze that elicited from her a heady giggle. _

_Eyes bright with a mixture of giddy excitement and the expensive wine they had purloined from her Magister Zaagabaath's private stock before escaping the party, Anna nodded her head. _

_For no particular reason except he wished too, and it would all add to her compliance, he who was once Ffamran gave her a quick kiss to her cheek and led her towards the door. _

_The were strolling down the corridors, he who was once Ffamran propelling Anna along with one arm clamped around her waist, when they were hailed to a stop by one anonymous armour plated junior Judge. _

'Bunansa what are you doing here? And why are you not in armour?'

_He who was once Ffamran recognised the man's face once he removed his helmet, dark with the golden brown complexion of one of the dusky-skinned southern island colonies. He wracked his brain rapidly for the man's name as he turned on his heel (a hopefully open and joyous smile on his face) with Anna clamped to his side._

'Winston. Hello.'

_Having recalled the Judge's name at the last opportune moment the man formally known as Ffamran internalised his relief when the Judge walked over to him warily but not particularly belligerently._

_Ffamran had never been well liked at the barracks; with no particular desire to make friends and being at least one entire social strata above most of those soldiers and Judges near his own age (not to mention painfully young to be a Judge and only in armour at all through an act of artless nepotism), he had usually been a figure for abuse or avoidance. _

_Winston had been an exception; never precisely a friend or even a compeer, he had at least never been involved in the petty acts of vengeance that Ffamran had endured during his 'hazing' into the fraternity of blood thirsty Imperial Judges. _

_For instance Winston had never partaken of the highly enjoyable activity of ambushing young Judge Ffamran while he walked down a (supposedly empty) corridor, throwing a bag over his head and bundling him into a store cupboard wherein he and his compatriots would proceed to pummel Ffamran about the head and torso with light weight canes. _

_That it was Winston who greeted them was both a relief and a concern to he who was once Ffamran. He would sooner Winston not be caught up in tonight's activities and found himself wondering if there was any way to extricate the only decent man he had met in the Judiciary from the upcoming events._

'Winston, have you met Miss Anna Zaagabaath?'

_Ffamran gently pushed Anna forward with a smile, _'Anna this is Winston…..Cornvin. He works for your father.'

_Winston immediately stood to attention as he realised he was in the presence of his Magister's only daughter. Clicking his heels together Winston performed a swift and neat bow._

'Miss Zaagabaath it is a pleasure.'

_Anna, who was after all Gentry and knew how to behave as one, managed to smile graciously and extend one delicate hand to be kissed while leaning back into Ffamran's arm._

'You work for my father, master Cornvin, how do you find it?'

_Winston smiled, though his curious, slightly wary, gaze slid to Ffamran before he smiled for Anna's benefit and addressed her question with one of his own. _

'Very well, Miss Zaagabaath; his honour Magister Zaagabaath is a very great and just man. I am privileged to work for him, but forgive me, what is it that brings the two of you here tonight?'

_Anna giggled delightedly and buried her head in Ffamran's shoulder, he who was once Ffamran repressed a wince of self-reproach that he had done such a good job of making Anna tipsy (to make her more biddable) and considered his options. _

_Did he act as Ffamran would and reply with sullen and perfunctory briskness, or did he deviate from the norm and try a more elaborate ruse?_

_He decided to lie outright, on consideration that it would be the best approach as Ffamran would not 'normally' be caught wandering the halls of the Judiciary building while off duty with a giggling girl attached to his arm. _

_He pasted a wide grin on his face (hoping it looked somewhat like Anna's sloppy smile) and leaned forward conspiratorially towards Winston._

'Can you keep a secret?' _he murmured to Winston, and although he could not know it, his whole demeanour reflected a happy-go-lucky, impish, but completely genuine giddy happiness that both surprised Winston, who knew Ffamran as an arrogant, aloof, but basically honest individual, and intrigued him. _

'Yes.' _Winston said simply, deeply curious._

_He who was once Ffamran laughed (falsely, but surprisingly convincingly) and slapped Winston lightly on the shoulder eyes glittering with a bright cheer that usually only madness or drunkenness could give to a person._

'Jolly good, so can I.' _he declared bullishly and Anna collapsed into peals of laughter against his shoulder. _

_With the consummate skill of a professionally trained thespian he who was once was Ffamran made a show of acting the part of a soused fool attempting to behave in sober and mature fashion._

'Forgive me, Winston, what you must think of us.'

_He who was once Ffamran made a point of standing up out of the uncharacteristic and delicately unsteady slouch he had affected to better portray giddy drunkenness and carefully pushed Anna from his shoulder to stand on her own two feet._

_Winston, who was watching him keenly not sure quite what to make of Ffamran's inexplicably Hume-like behaviour watched all this thoughtfully; the son of Ardents' from the southern Archadian territories, who had had to work for every opportunity, Winston had always viewed Ffamran and his blunt courtesy and outward lack of reaction to external stimuli as typical of the reptilian superiority of Gentry._

_Now, under the sway of the former Ffamran's virtuoso performance, he found himself almost warming to the other in the face of Ffamran's bright and engagingly happy grin._

'We are getting married you see.' _He who was once Ffamran affected a bashful stance, looking down at his leather sandals and then over to the blushing Anna with what he hoped was a suitably besotted look. _

'Married?'

_Winston looked between the two, he who was once Ffamran could see the wheels turning in his mind._

_No doubt Winston had heard, in the maelstrom of tittle-tattle and gossip that passed for society in Archades, that his name and Anna's had been linked (it seemed that there was not a soul in the capital that had not witnessed or heard about their kiss on the promenade) and, as he who was once Ffamran had hoped, Winston began to draw his own conclusions as to why the two of them would be wandering about the corridors of power tipsy and delighted. _

_Winston's eyes dropped down to the picnic basket on Anna's arm, _'I see, so you have come with the Nuptial Tithe?'

_He who was once Ffamran smiled sharply as Winston made all the wrong assumptions at the right time, _'Precisely.'

_It was custom in Archadia for a couple just betrothed to give gifts to those they had close association with, the definition of which could extend to include work colleagues, and thus with the use of a giggling girl and a picnic basket he who was once Ffamran had presented an entirely justifiable reason for his presence in the barracks. _

_Smiling happily, fulfilling her role without knowing what she did was inherently false, Anna reached into the basket and withdrew one of the honey cakes from within to give to Winston._

'We are headed for Ghis' bureau, as I am primarily appointed to his Honour; would you care to join us?'

_He who was once Ffamran waited, tension straightening his spine, for Winston's answer._

_Winston, accepting the cake, smiled but shook his head, _'My shift is all but over. I finish at midnight. My mother is unwell and I promised I would return promptly once my shift had finished.'

_He who was once Ffamran managed to summon a smile, though he suddenly felt tired and sick at the mention of midnight, _'A shame.' _He murmured peaceably. _

_Anna nodded her head in agreement fishing in her basket. _'In that case please give this to your mother with my compliments.' _She presented him with another cupcake. _

_After that there was little to do but wave cheerfully and watch Winston move on down the corridor. _

_As soon as Winston had disappeared around the corner he who was once Ffamran disengaged Anna from his side to glance at his wristwatch; a quarter off eleven. Gods damn it time simply flew by when one was lying through his teeth._

_At least now he had a reliable witness to testify that he and Anna were in the building, though he regretted deeply that fate had seen fit to involve a decent man in this unfolding deception. _

_Not bothering to pretend, in his darkening mood, to Anna that he was either intoxicated or besotted (he simply did not have the energy to be that manipulative and truthfully his conscience was bothering him terribly) he who was no longer Ffamran led her swiftly through the corridors of the Judiciary and towards the subterranean cells._

'Ghis' Bureau is that way Ffamran, where are we going?'

_Anna piped up as he tapped in 'Lily' into the keypad. Zaagabaath was not particularly imaginative; apparently he had three different floral codes that he used alternatively, each flower name consisting of two words and each word used separately to open each alternative barred door. _

'To the cells,' _he saw no purpose in lying as he all but pushed her into the lift and pressed the control button to start their descent. _

_Anna's expression contorted in a mask of distaste, '_Why would we want to go there? Ffamran there are _prisoners_ down there.'

_Despite himself he who was once Ffamran quirked an amused eyebrow, _'Yes, that is generally what one puts in cells, isn't it?'

_Anna frowned, _'I'm not giving cakes to prisoners that is hardly very patriotic behaviour. Did you know they are keeping that awful man here - what is his name? – oh, y'know the Landissan man –anyway it does not matter. What matters is that they keep traitors and terrorists and other low sorts down here, Ffamran.'

'Only the ineffectual terrorists and traitors, the better calibre of such the Empire employ in the Judiciary.'

_He muttered distractedly, trying to remember from his time on watch duty and the brief glimpse of the cell level grid plan on the monitor, where precisely Hamish was being held. _

_Anna stamped her foot, a soft flapping sound on the cool steel floor of the lift, and drew his attention back to her. _'You are not going peculiar on me again are you, Ffamran?'

'Peculiar?'

_Anna nodded vigorously, arms folded across her chest, cradling her full bosom. _'Yes, peculiar, like you were when we talked about our futures and you were so upset about following tradition and what your father wanted. You told me you planned to escape, though I'm not sure I know what you meant to escape from.'

_Oh, bollocks._

_He who was once Ffamran smiled thinly, while silently berating himself viciously for saying any of that to Anna, and cursing the vacuous girl for remembering in the first place. Why had she chosen that day, of all days, to pay attention to anything anyone said to her?_

'Oh, yes, that,' _he waved his hand dismissively, _'let's just forget that little conversation ever happened, hmm?' _he smiled engagingly. Mollified somewhat Anna shrugged and unclasped her arms from across her chest._

'Very well; I am glad you have given up on such silly fancies.'

'Oh, I assure you,' _he who was no longer Ffamran smiled slyly even as his eyes hardened, _'my fancies are anything but silly.'

_Anna opened her mouth for further comment but at that moment the doors to the lift slid open with a whisper of hydraulics. He who was once Ffamran caught her arm and propelled her through the doors into the cool, faintly damp feeling, heaviness of the dungeon prison. _

_Anna hesitated by the closed lift doors and looked at him with slightly wide eyes filled with reproach. Feeling his patience waning with encroaching anxiety, he who was once Ffamran tugged on her arm and almost pulled her off her feet down the corridor._

'Ffamran, I don't like it here. It's too quiet and dark and dank. I can't imagine anyone enjoying being here.'

_Anna whispered fretfully, caught between wanting to cling to him and dig her heels in refusing to go further down the narrow, steel plated and stone walled corridor poorly lit by flickering crystal lights unevenly affixed to the low ceiling._

'Dungeons are not generally built with pleasing aesthetics in mind, sweetheart.' _He who was no longer Ffamran murmured distractedly, barely conscious of what he said, as his mind skimmed ahead of him. _

_Finally he found the door he was looking for and tapped in his own security code (junior judges all had their own limited security clearance; Ffamran's own allowed him to open stationary cupboards throughout the Empire) and opened the door to the small, relative empty, storage room beyond._

_With a wicked smile he bowed and gestured for the frowning Anna to precede him into the small space, though he kept his eyes averted. He did not quite trust his expression to hold firm should she meet his eyes. _

_He could not afford to allow guilt to ruin him now. _

'Ffamran?' _Anna's voice almost proved to be his undoing. He did not love her, could never love her, but had he been capable, had things been different, he would have tried. That fact made what he was about to do all the harder._

_He smiled, making sure that the action was slow, lazy and filled with as much salacious suggestion as he could muster. _'I thought you agreed to do something a little bit dangerous, sweetheart, just a little bit improper for once in your life, hmm?'

_Anna blushed, the heat and blood creeping up from her collarbone to spread over her neck and up into her cheeks. She was caught in an exquisite agony of curiosity, temptation and scandalised affront. _

_He who was once Ffamran merely waited out the moral dilemma that waged within the confines of Anna's voluptuous form. _

_Inside his own mind and soul there was nothing but echoing silence. He had fought his own battles with his conscience for the last three days and his conscience had lost. _

_Eventually Anna's own battle was won and lost in equal measure and she stepped through the threshold. _

_He who was no longer Ffamran moved with the swiftness of the guilty and the desperate. Before Anna could properly turn round to face him he had slammed the storeroom door on her and punched in the locking code. _

'Ffamran! Ffamran this is not funny. What are you doing?'

_Anna's fists pattered on the other side of the steel door as, shaking violently and sick with guilt and regret…..and yes, fear…..he who was no longer Ffamran leaned his back against the door and closed his eyes feeling the vibrations of her fists on the other side of the door. _

'I'm sorry, Anna, truly, but this is the only way.' _He whispered, though he doubted she could hear him. _

'I have thought this over time and again. Every scenario, every possibility, and there is no way an outsider can break through into the cells. It could never work.'

_Slowly he slumped down the door as a sudden sick weakness stole his equilibrium and he could no longer support his own weight. His eyes felt strangely hot and scratchy and he did not understand it._

_Could guilt hurt this much and yet still prove so utterly impotent?_

'I would never involve you if I could do this alone but I need a hostage; a reason for the Imperial army to lay siege on the prison. A Magister's daughter is perfect, though I don't suppose I have any right to assume you'd understand that.'

_His heart hammered in his throat and cold sweat slicked his body. Raising his hands to rake through his hair he noticed that those same hands were shaking. _

'I am truly, dreadfully, sorry. I...I wish that things could be in some way different. That I could be what you think you want me to be. But I have to do this. I have to be free.'

_He doubted she could hear him through the steel and he was glad. _

_In his soul he knew there was no excuse for what he had done to her – what he was going to do – and he also knew that merely knowing and accepting what he did was wrong would not stop him. _

_That he regretted that Anna had to be used in such a way was neither here nor there. He did not regret it enough to spare her, therefore guilt or regret or even self-recrimination was nothing more than self-serving indulgence on his part._

_Gathering his nerve he who was once Ffamran rose to his feet, pushed away from the door (the faint thumps of Anna's fists on the other side still audible) and, placing his hands against the smooth surface of the door, he drew a steadying breath._

'Don't worry sweetheart, you won't be in there long. I promise.' _He who was once Ffamran whispered wretchedly, swallowing convulsively against the bile that wanted to choke him. Somewhere inside his soul the viciously suppressed whisper of Ffamran's better nature railed against him. _

_It made no difference; as much as he might hate himself the allure of ultimate freedom assured he did not falter in his plan. _

_Calmly and coldly he raised his wrist to look down at the face of his wristwatch. Ten past eleven. Not long now, not long at all. Without a backward glance he who was no longer Ffamran started walking down the corridor away from the storage room. _

_He reached the communication panel set into the wall that the guards used to report in, he pulled the receiver from the wall._

'Calling all guardsmen in sub-level one, calling all guardsmen in sub-level one; we have a critical situation. The inmates are loose and have taken hostages. I repeat the inmates have taken the dungeons.'

_With cold precision he who was once Ffamran pulled out the set of tools he had slipped into the inner pocket of the tail coat his father had bought for him and set to work disabling the relatively simply communication and lighting system within the sub-level dungeon._

_Returning to the lift it took perhaps a further fifteen minutes to disable the elevator mechanism. Once these two tasks had been completed it left the dungeon essentially cut off from all communication or mundane means of entering or leaving the floor. _

_As the siren song of numerous klaxons began to ring throughout the darkened corridors of the dungeons, he who was once Ffamran made his way (feeling along the wall by touch) towards the door to the storeroom he had trapped Anna within. _

_Eventually the metal clanking guards on duty in the lower levels thronged the corridor leading to the inoperative lift. They rushed blindly through the pitch black corridors cursing, yelling to, and tripping over, one another like overgrown children. _

_He who was once Ffamran pulled a Libra Bangle from his inner jacket pocket and shifted forward from his silent hiding place in the alcove of the storeroom doorway. _

_He had never used any such magickal item before. Archadians, and the Judiciary in particular, were not over fond of magick, preferring the controllable resource of technology to the ancient wildness of magick. _

_Slipping on his new purchase (bought yesterday from a shady dealer in Old Archades) he who was no longer Ffamran found that he could easily navigate the dark using the strange magick of the bangle._

_Each guardsmen was highlighted by a lurid pink glow which pulsed in time with their heartbeats and made them easy targets for the silent footed traitor in their midst._

_He who was once Ffamran slipped up behind each soldier (and wouldn't his combat instructors be proud of how well he utilised the skills they had imparted?) and knocked each out with a sleeping potion soaked handkerchief before they knew he was even there. _

_His objectives met he who was no longer Ffamran slipped, silent as the grave in his hidden finery, to settle by the door to the storeroom wherein he had trapped Anna, cross- legged and head in hands. _

_In the claustrophobic blanketing blackness and screaming rage of the blearing klaxons, he who was once Ffamran closed his eyes against one darkness only to welcome another. _

_That was how he remained, silent as stone, surrounded by a chaos of his own making, pretending he could not hear a frightened girl's sobs through the din all around, waiting patiently for midnight in the all-consuming darkness of his own ambition. _

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_A/N: Okay this chapter over ran…so next (Ffamran) chapter will reveal the origins of the name 'Balthier'. _


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Seekers Without Answers; Fran's Story Pt. One

_A/N: It's been update after update recently, where will it end?...anyway this is the first part of an exploration into Fran's history (or my take on it)._

_P.S: Though I have been trying to do a better job of responding directly to each of your individual reviews, I would like to thank everyone for their continual interest in, and feedback to, this story._

* * *

'Gods damn it, would you look at this.'

Balthier muttered ill-spiritedly mostly to himself as he poked at the mass of frayed, fluid leaking, wires and circuitry tangled in a nest inside the steering console relay of the Strahl.

'The electrics and command relays have been almost completely eroded by Mist.' He growled using his specialised tools to poke inside the thicket of wires and tap irritably at the scorched and burned circuit boards and fused control nodes.

'I'm going to have to strip the old girl down to her bare boards and re-wire the entire steering and navigation arrays.'

Balthier continued in his complaining as he pushed himself out from underneath the control console (where he had been wedged, lying flat on his back, between the pilot's and navigator's chairs) and reached for a rag to wipe the oil, grease and Mist residue fluid from his hands.

Fran, sitting neatly in one of the passenger seats with one long leg crossed over the over, remained impassive. 'We have the necessary equipment for this maintenance?'

'Hmm,' Balthier looked up at her from his distracted thoughts, 'Oh, yes. The Strahl blows her fuse fairly regularly, it's just an annoyance.'

In truth under ordinary circumstances Balthier would not mind too terribly greatly, his love for his ship outweighing the inconvenience (and yes, expense) of maintaining an antique in flight worthy shape.

It was also true that the sort of detailed, complex, fine-tuning needed was the sort of (if not the only) maintenance he was actually prepared to soil his cuffs in doing himself.

Fran cocked her head to the side, 'Can I be of assistance?'

Fran was of course an exemplary mechanical engineer, but her expertise lay in engines and heavy machinery, while his lay in wiring and small components. It was typical of their partnership that like so many other aspects of their duality their different strengths and corresponding weaknesses created a perfect symbiosis.

In this instance, however, Fran's long clawed hands made it difficult for her to do the fine, fiddly work needed to repair the steering controls and Nono, who was small enough to reach the pokier nooks and crannies inside the control console, was unfortunately elsewhere overseeing the funerals of a handful of heroic Moogles.

Balthier smiled with genuine warmth, 'You are always of assistance, Fran.' He murmured honestly. He then briskly shook himself and focussed on the business at hand.

'Would you be so kind as to disengage the power couplings to the cockpit from the engine room? I would rather not risk electrocuting myself.'

Without a word Fran rose from her chair and left the cockpit. Balthier watched her go with open admiration, knowing that for all the heightened intensity of her senses, Fran did not, thankfully, have eyes in the back of her head.

Once he was sure she had gone Balthier let out a pent up sigh from the depths of his lungs, not relief and not regret, it was more an exhalation of exhaustion.

Spreading the fingers of each hand, which hovered over his drawn up knees as he sat on the cold floor of the Strahl's cockpit, Balthier noted the twitching tremor that raced through his hands and into the pinkish, swollen and slightly discolored and grey joints of his fingers, with disgust.

Balthier had been feeling, if not outright unwell, then at the very least out-of-sorts for the last week.

Initially he had dismissed the muscle pains and disturbed stomach as merely the aftermath of over exertion from rescuing Fran (not to mention the excitements of involving her in a war torn scheme that saw her kidnapped in the first place – and saw him garner a collection of interesting bumps and bruises). However as he was usually a robust and swift healer and far too proud to give in to common ailments, it was surprising that the strange malady afflicting him persisted days after those events had faded into recent memory.

Still it would take more than an upset stomach and some minor swelling and discoloration of the extremities to force him to admit to being merely mortal and thus afflicted by mortal ailments.

So far he felt he had done a relatively thorough job of hiding his weakness and discomfiture from Fran, even to the point of managing to avoid eating altogether that much in her presence (which was a feat in itself as Fran tended to view his lack of very great appetite with distain - the only times she ever appeared even remotely 'motherly' toward him was when she chided him to eat), still he did not suppose he would be able to do so for much longer.

Rising to his feet, with the intention of checking some of the subsidiary wiring in the cabin walls (the lighting system had been on the blink and he suspected the Mist damage had spread to non-essential systems as well), Balthier was suddenly afflicted by a wave of nauseating dizziness and loss of vision. He tottered on his feet and groped blindly for support.

His questing hand caught hold of something warm, silky soft and smooth with long, sharp nails. Fran's hand curled around his and drew him towards one of the passenger seats.

'This weakness cannot go on. The rhythms of your body are out of balance. You are ill.'

Balthier sighed in resignation as he cupped his head in his hands and blinked away the lingering cloud of black and white spots obscuring his vision. 'It is just a little light-headedness Fran; no doubt I have simply neglected to eat a balanced diet, hmm?'

He looked up at her with a weak attempt at his usual blasé smirk. Fran remained less than amused. She quirked an eyebrow as she stood before him, hip-cocked and arms folded across her chest.

'Think you I do not know, Balthier? What little you eat your body then purges violently; your stomach rebelling against its own hunger. Did you think to hide the evidence of your own illness from me, or perhaps yourself?'

A tiny tickle of annoyance whispered over him as he conceded that yes, it had been foolish to assume Fran would not be able to intuit even the slightest change in his demeanour, but really did she have to be quite so blunt about it?

'Clearly either deception was set to fail from the outset.' He muttered darkly, 'I am prepared to concede I may have contracted some manner of mild gastric malady; a trifling thing really.'

Fran shook her head with a soft 'tut' of disapproval, a strangely overt sign of annoyance from her. She crouched down in front of him and placed her long, elegant palm across his forehead, surprising him with the candour of her touch.

'I scent it, Balthier. There is a pall of Mist in the very air, blown east from Nabudis, that taints each rain fall and sickens the fish in the rivers and the livestock in the fields. This taint of Mist from your skin does rise as well.'

Her frank gaze was too much for Balthier.

She had never once asked him of Nabudis, or Nalbina, or of Hamish and his merry band of rebels, and he, in gratitude, had not spoken to her of her wild, crazed behaviour in the Highwaste prior to her capture.

Instead they had loitered quietly in Balfonheim and closed their ears to the wild stories and conjecture that filled the Whitecap tavern and the Gallerina.

They had paid no mind to the stories of the Mist sickness that had taken the lives of many of the survivors of Nabudis and the poison rain that had cascaded from the skies in the surrounding areas as a result of the huge Mist funnel that had risen from Nabradia plains on that terrible night.

'I am not poisoned Fran, merely a little under the weather.'

Balthier gritted out through his teeth, unwilling to consider just how much of that noxious vapour and Mist he had absorbed into his lungs during his ill-fated visit to the fallen Nabudis.

Wouldn't Bethesda be delighted should it prove he too had been poisoned by the Empire's newest weapon of annihilation?

Something flickered in Fran's strange and unerring almond shaped eyes; he could not read the emotion, if that was what it was, that passed beneath her serene façade.

'I see it, Balthier, your eyes are dark. They bleed. Through your eyes your soul is weeping. You speak more eloquently with each averted glance than with any words. In your eyes I see Nabudis fall.'

Balthier flinched. He tried to control the impulse but could not. He shied away from her like a frightened child afraid she would strike at him. In many ways her words bit deeper than any physical injury.

Words swelled up in an impossible tide on the tip of his tongue, a deluge of confusion threatening to drown them both should he loose that tide. Instead he pursed his lips and shook his head.

Fran reached out a hand to brush her knuckles down his cheek. 'You will not speak?'

For a moment the simple intimacy of her touch, the sublime gentleness (enlivened by the slightest spark of indulgent humour which quickened his soul) threatened to undo his resolve to keep those horrors he had witnessed locked away inside him.

Almost unconsciously he brushed his face against her palm, knowing that this moment's physicality between them (as chaste as it was) would be fleeting and so he wanted to garner as much from it as he could, while he could.

'Is it not the Hume way to speak on ones fears; does that not aid your healing from such soul deep wounds?' she sounded both curious and perturbed by Balthier's solemn silence.

'I haven't any answers Fran, so what good is conversation? Everything I thought I knew of war and empire was proved wrong that night. I knew my homeland was governed by avarice and superior conceit, but I had not known…I did not know…..had not fathomed that such……._evil….._truly existed until I saw Nabudis fall.'

Abruptly he stopped the stream of babble falling from his lips, jerking back from her touch as he realised that, foolishly, selfishly, he had let his tongue run away with him.

He had vowed to himself not to speak of Nabudis ever, and never to Fran.

A wave of uncomfortably hot chills chased up his spine and throbbed in his finger jolts, which had swollen enough that he had removed his rings before they began to pinch intolerably. More irritated with this resurgence in his own frailty than pained by it, Balthier turned his hot, angry gaze away from Fran.

He did not want Fran to see him like this. He did not want her to see him sick, and scared, and confused. He did not want her to find him to be merely as foolish, ignorant and ridiculous as the great mass of Hume-kind that she had never bothered to know.

If Fran was to discover that he was no different (perhaps even that he was worse) than any other Hume she might chose to leave him. The thought of that alone was enough to set his teeth to chattering, even as he locked his jaw against it.

'You have no answers?' Fran queried still perched, seemingly comfortable, in a crouch before his chair.

As he looked up at her, almost involuntarily, he caught the faintest hint of a smile resting in her eyes and on her lips. 'Do you only seek conversation when you have all the answers, Balthier?'

He tried to wriggle free of her calm, steady regard, as he realised that her jest hit surprisingly close to the mark.

'That is not what I meant Fran.' He muttered mulishly, hunching his shoulders against the feverish burn of shivers that chased up his torso and raced down his arms.

He had always been self-assured (arrogant many claimed) but until now he had always assumed that assurance was justified, that he had in fact possessed most, if not all, of the answers.

Now he was not sure he even knew the questions, let alone the answers.

Fran was watching him quietly, patiently, and he had the feeling that she knew something of the turmoil inside him, that she could hear every question he was afraid to voice.

The thought terrified him, but deep down, he found he wished it was true. He wished that she could give him the answers, that in her long years of wandering she had discovered the root of, and the cure to, the evil in men's heart.

'Why Fran?' he whispered unable to stay quiet. 'Why do you not return to your Wood? To where your fellow Viera reside? How can you stand to associate with Humes when you know what we do?'

He regretted the words in an instant and looked up at her in shocked horror at his own thoughtless stupidity.

He was mortified that he had not only questioned her on the past he swore he did not care about, but that he had suggested that she might have justification to leave him and go where he could not follow.

To his utter astonishment Fran's beautiful, still face underwent an instantaneous transformation right before his eyes.

She smiled.

Not a tiny quiver of her lips, not a twinkle in the eye and twitch of one long, elegant ear, but a true smile, a strangely predatory flash of white teeth against her dusky cinnamon skin.

'I had pondered that you may never find bravery enough to ask such of me, Balthier.'

In the blinking of an eyelash Fran had returned to her familiar placidity but he knew that he had seen the spirit within flash free for just a moment, and he now watched her rise to her feet with silent amazement.

'There will be no repairs done today.' Fran stated with calm recitation of fact and implicit command. 'You are ill Balthier; it is time for you to retire to your bed.'

Woozily Balthier frowned at her, 'Are you evading the question?' he found he was not sure, blind-sided by that shocking grin and by his own fuzzy-headed misery.

Fran cocked her head to the side and looked at him with a strangely penetrating regard.

'Do you truly seek an answer?'

Ordinarily Fran's gaze was cool and passive, seeing all but actively pursuing none of the secrets she saw revealed in the eyes of men, yet now she looked on him as if she would hunt down an honest answer.

It was, to say the very least, as disconcerting as her sudden grin had been exhilarating.

Feeling increasingly unwell, partly due to his own malady, but mostly due to the tumultuous twists and turns their conversation had taken thus far, Balthier rose carefully, joints hot and aching, to his feet.

'To be quite frank, Fran, I no longer know. How can I have answers when the bloody questions elude me?'

Fran's gaze softened and strange warmth suffused her face, something far greater and rarer even than her smile.

'That is good. I will tell you now. I will speak of Eruyt, for you are ready to listen now.'

Balthier wondered, confusedly, how he had inadvertently stumbled upon the means to reach the very heart of her being, the key to her companionship he had sought all along, and cursed himself to realise that he still did not know what he had done, or said, that had affected such a change in her.

He blinked at her dumbly, 'Why now?'

The prospect that he might have simply asked Fran honestly at any time in their association if she sought to leave him and received an honest answer left him quietly shaken to his core.

He had always assumed that Fran was as he was, jealous and protective of her past and her secrets. Now he began to suspect that he had been very wrong in this assumption.

He had been wrong on so many things lately.

Fran nodded her head and Balthier was almost convinced that she was agreeing with his silent, internal monologue, the realisations that came thick and fast as he came to the conclusion that, in truth, he did not know as much as he thought he did.

'The song of the wind in the trees may be loud and strong, but if there is no will or means to listen to new truths and distant voices, the wind's song goes unheeded. Why for would I tell you what you believed you did not wish to know?'

There was no reproach in her tone but Balthier still felt a sting of shame as he moved slowly and cautiously, his body itching with throbbing aches and pains that seemed to have taken his concession of ill health as a mandate to make him suffer fully, towards the Strahl's outer cabin.

'I thought I was being gallant, Fran. I was trying to demonstrate that I accepted you as you are now and was not swayed by what you once were.' He sighed reproachfully, 'I was trying to be selflessly open-minded.'

'To ask is not selfish; to assume in silence is.'

Balthier turned back to her sharply (regretting the motion when his head reeled), he frowned darkly. 'Clearly I have much to learn about Hume – Viera etiquette.'

The slightest twitch of her ears indicated her amusement, 'Indeed. You may yet learn, however.'

With Fran following him with the silent grace of a falling leaf, Balthier made his way to his tiny cabin and flopped (somewhat gratefully) onto his bed.

Fran surprised him for the umpteenth time that morning by settling her long, lithe body on the counterpane beside him (the bed was narrow and allowed for no room between the lines of their bodies, her hip brushed against him and his whole being tingled with the contact – or possibly it was merely his rising fever, but Balthier preferred his interpretation).

Sitting up with her back against the wall, while Balthier lay his aching head on the mound of pillows, Fran set her gaze upon the empty vista of her memory, hands still and resting in her lap.

Eventually, after a moment's quietude wherein Balthier fidgeted to make himself comfortable and Fran gathered her thoughts, she turned her head towards him and raised an inquiring eyebrow, 'You are lying comfortably?'

Despite himself, as he looked up at her, Balthier felt his lips quiver in dry amusement. 'Oh yes, quite comfortable. It has been an age since I have enjoyed a bedtime story.'

Fran refrained from comment as she once again looked away from him. Her eyes calm and her expression peaceful.

Balthier marvelled at how easy it appeared to be for Fran to peel back the layers of time and distance and reveal herself to him. Vaguely he doubted that he would ever have the strength to be so steady in retelling his past (not that he intended to tell anyone about his true origins save Fran, and she already knew the bare bones of the whole sordid story).

'Once,' Fran began in her cool, exotic tones, 'I was Viera and of the Wood.'

Watching her closely Balthier shifted onto his side. He was deeply curious about her tale (he had made some educated guesses regarding how long she had been exiled from her people and which Viera village she hailed from) yet the sheer proximity of her exquisite body to his was proving distracting.

'Know you of Eruyt, Balthier?'

Wrenching his gaze from the gorgeous length of her legs laid out across his bed, the silky, lacquered sheen of the skin of her thighs seeming to glow in his fuzzy vision, Balthier smirked to cover his momentary embarrassment at being caught staring.

'No. I don't believe I'm familiar with the name. Am I to assume that this – _Eruyt –_' he stumbled on the unfamiliar pronunciation, 'is the place of your birth, Fran?'

Fran nodded, 'It is situated along the Path of Verdant Praise within the jungle of Golmore. I and my sisters were born of the Wood of Golmore.'

Balthier raised his eyebrows sharply, 'Sisters?' he had not considered that Fran might have siblings – the idea of his beautiful, unique Fran coming from an extended family was very peculiar to him.

Somehow, strangely, the prospect almost seemed to diminish her and he found himself oddly unwilling to hear of her family. Of course this may simply be residue bitterness over his own filial situation.

Fran nodded once more, a troubled frown alighting briefly upon her countenance. 'Jote and Myrn; it has been near fifty summers and winters past since I saw my sisters last.'

Balthier controlled his reaction instantly and so when Fran cast her keen gaze on him he gave her nothing but a look of mild and innocent interest. He thought he detected the slightest hint of relief in her countenance at his very lack of reaction to this revelation.

_Fifty years, hmm? Well, well, fancy that._

Balthier considered this and briefly curiosity flared in him regarding Fran's true age, but then he let the matter drop.

It mattered not to him if she was fifty or seventy or seven hundred. Age was merely a number in any respect. Her wealth of accumulated experience simply formed a rich seam of knowledge he could exploit to make up for his own youthful ignorance.

'……….warder of the Wood, it was my task to mind the paths and guard the Jungle's secrets from those who would misuse the Wood and trespass upon the Green Way.'

Balthier came back to himself to realise he had drifted away from the melodious rise and fall of Fran's unfolding tale. He raised his hand (skin throbbing and pulsing with aching heat) to his forehead and grimaced against the clammy moisture that beaded on his brow.

Almost unconsciously, feeling exquisitely miserable, hearing fading in waves of sound and eyes burning in the dim light, Balthier shifted imperceptibly closer to Fran, though, in truth, no distance remained between them.

He sought his own comfort but, strangely and entirely inadvertently, his presence brought comfort to Fran as well.

'In the Wood time has little meaning. Viera measure the passing of the season through the ebb and flow of new life along the Green Way. That which grows blossoms, blooms and decays only for new growth to rise anew after the frost.'

The tip of Balthier's nose (too long and slight up-turned, he had always been a little displeased with his profile because of that same nose) brushed against Fran's hip. He sighed and his breath stroked down her thigh. The world she recreated with her words held little appeal to him. A prison of foliage was a prison all the same.

Thankfully he was not quite feverish enough to admit this out loud.

'War and peace, empires and principalities, are to Viera no more than a phantom whisper that sometimes blows through the jungle boughs, and is thusly disregarded.'

Fran paused and in her silence Balthier suspected much went unspoken. In every word she had thusly spoken he had heard the distant ghostly echo of grief for the world she had left behind.

This sorrow, at least, he could understand, and for that reason he made no acknowledgement of its echo in her tale. There could be no commiseration for a bereavement so personal and enduring and one that had been wrought through choice.

'I remember not what year in the Hume calendar it was, nor quite remember now which war did scatter the Hume man and his party to the paths of Golmore. I fear it matters not.'

'Hume man?' Woozily Balthier dragged his attention to the tale; it appeared to be gaining momentum and interest.

Balthier had long suspected (and in fact Fran had hinted as much) that he was not the first Hume she had taken up with, but he had never quite found the courage to ask after his predecessors in anything other than the most ribald jests that were easily deferred and ignored by her.

Fran nodded, 'I know not what his name was. To Viera that man and the Hume women and children he sought to guide safely through Golmore were no more than trespassers. As warder of the Wood I did confront the man as he tried to navigate our sacred paths.'

It was proving a struggle to keep his eyes open and to his great discomfort Balthier could feel his attention sliding away into fever dreams.

Thus it was not lechery but an attempt to remain with Fran as her past unfolded that led him to rest his swollen hand (already blemished with the dark spots of encroaching Mist poisoning that Fran recognised and Balthier did not) on her knee.

'I take it the confrontation did not go as planned?' Balthier struggled with a swollen tongue to show that he remained as attentive and interested in her story as he could be, under the unfortunate circumstances.

Fran, picking up his hand and studying it, both palm and back, to check that his Mist dosing was not more severe than she suspected, sighed audibly.

'As Viera I warned the Hume and his companions of their danger and that he would receive no shelter, nor welcome, within Golmore; no Hume alone could find the means to enter Eruyt and no true Viera would aid him.'

'The Hume did not listen, I wager?' Balthier forced open heavy and slightly swollen eyelids to look up at her curiously.

Fran shook her head, 'The Humes fled from war. Those accompanying the Hume man had lost all they had ever known or loved. In their desperation, their desolation, they had come to believe that salvation resided beyond Golmore's canopy. They would not be deterred.'

Balthier nodded his face close enough to Fran's leg that his cheek brushed her skin, a quick and pleasant friction. 'Unsurprising; were they headed for the east or the west of Golmore?'

Fran's surprise was noticeable in the slight tension that went through her body at his question. 'You know of Golmore, Balthier?'

He chuckled, 'It is difficult for a student of geography not to know something of Golmore Fran; it is the largest jungle in the southern hemisphere. I was merely curious what skirmish could have displaced these persons you speak of.'

Fran hesitated a moment before answering, 'They sought passage north-west through Golmore and entered from the east.'

Balthier could feel a slight, ironic smirk brush his lips, 'So they were mostly likely Archadian. Perhaps escaping the Deering Boar war, the timing seems sound, if memory serves.'

'I know not. As Viera it was not my place to know, nor care.'

'I cannot imagine you so devoid of curiosity Fran.' Balthier admitted, even as his words slurred and he began to shiver violently.

'Viera have no need of curiosity; all is known in the Wood. The Green Way has many winding paths but does not deviate nor change direction.'

'It sounds highly restrictive and not a little dull.' Balthier began to fade into fever dream.

Thus he did not see Fran's bittersweet smile and barely felt her long claw tips stroke through his short hair in response.

'Yes,' she murmured on a breath, 'you are not the first Hume to call it such. Yet the Wood was mother to me and the Green Way my home.'

'Then why leave?' he whispered on the brink of sleep.

Yet Balthier still forced his eyes open to catch a faint glimpse of the genuine anguish that twisted like a knife within her scarlet eyes.

'You speak of seeking answers, Balthier, but it is not answers that need be sought. For answers offer no absolution. The Wood whispered to me that the Hume trespassers should be left to fall to the fiends of Golmore. That they be granted neither aid nor shelter, though some be barely more than babes and others frail with age.'

Fran shook her head sharply her expression lit with rare animation and infused with a dark anguish that had lurked within her for longer than Balthier had drawn breath.

'The Wood spoke and Fran the Viera did listen.'

Balthier said nothing, though he suspected what she would say next. He saw a quiet, aching regret and futile anger banked behind her crimson gaze and recognised his own anger and confusion, regards the fall of Nabudis, in that reflected fire.

Responding to her almost imperceptible distress Balthier reached out his hand that rested in her lap and clasped her cool fingers in his swollen, stiff jointed hand.

When Fran spoke again her voice was torn with an almost unspeakable sorrow; too remote for grief, too deep to be merely ancient regret.

'There was evil in the Wood. Evil whispering along the Green Way and it did not come from the Humes.'

Fran closed her eyes and squeezed Balthier's hand in turn.

'There was evil in the Wood and its name was Fran.'

* * *

_A/N: By and by, I seem to like to make Balthier suffer, don't I? Now I've given the poor sod a mild case of poisoning, does my sadism know no ends? ;)_


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: What's in a name? The Cautionary Tale of the Rogue Balthier**

_A/N: the suspense is over…this is it, the origins of the name 'Balthier'…and I'm fairly sure my take on it is quite unique._

_P.S honorary mention to Cable Fraga, it's lovely to hear from you again! I am also hugely flattered that reading my updates ranks above feeding your offspring; I like your priorities! ;)_

* * *

_Around and around the metal bracelet ran through his fingers. The metal had grown warm under the run of his hands and the groves and indentations in the metal formed by the magickal engravings had become a form of tactile memory under the pads of his fingers. _

_Midnight had come and gone and above his head the ceiling of the sub level dungeon almost seemed to shudder with the pounding of metal clad feet and the clanking of machinery. _

_There was however no noise at all from within the storeroom. _

_In the hot, close darkness he who was no longer Ffamran sighed and tipped his head back against the solid steel of the storeroom door. There was nothing to do but wait._

_Sooner or later those above would manage to repair the broken lift mechanism and would swiftly storm the dungeon; the only question was whether those invaders would be Imperial agents or pirates, neither of which could be classed as 'friend'. _

_Whoever it ended up being would not find the rioting prisoners they might have expected, but would instead find one sixteen year old boy sitting cross legged in front of an innocuous storeroom door. _

_The rumble of some form of controlled (or not so controlled) explosion filtered down through the half a dozen or so feet of stone and steel forming the ceiling of the dungeon from above; they were getting closer. _

_Again he wondered if it was conceivable that one half-wild uni-orbed pirate and his sadistic paramour could really sneak by a full Imperial crisis squad. _

_There was only one way to find out; he simply had to wait. _

_Somewhere deeper in the circuitous maze of corridors and interlocking chambers in the sprawling dungeon Hamish was waiting (though he did not know it) likely still guarded by the dedicated unit of Judges assigned to guard Vayne Solidor's favourite scapegoat. _

_Absently, a subconscious manifestation of his nervousness, he who was no longer Ffamran ran the metal circlet of the Libra bangle up and down his thigh, tapping the bangle against his flesh. _

_He who was once Ffamran closed his eyes (not that it made any difference in the artificial darkness) and concentrated on simply breathing in and out._

_In and out; in and out. _

_He refused to think on anything but the almost mechanical process of breathing. It was a kind of meditation though he would never admit it as such. _

_The sudden clanking wheeze of heavy machinery snapped him to attention. He leapt to his feet a second before the dungeon lighting flared to life in a blinding wash of harsh, white, crystal light. _

_He who was once Ffamran ducked around the nearest corner and pressed his back against the wall slipping the Libra Bangle back on. _

_The hydraulic whistle of the lift doors opening penetrated the fraught silence. He who was once Ffamran stopped breathing as he waited for some audible cue to who it was that had breached the cells. _

_A bright and brittle laugh fluttered into the fetid air of the dungeon mingled with the distinctive click of sharp pointed high heeled boots._

'What is this; no warm welcome awaiting us?'

_He who was once Ffamran almost groaned in relief as he recognised Ruthy's rich contralto purr, yet for some reason his muscles in his legs locked and he could not, would not, move. _

_There was the faint scuff of booted feet but he could tell from where they originated, where they approached or whom they belonged to. Suddenly, as he was straining to hear a large hand, almost a paw, attached to a thickly muscled forearm appeared around the corner where he who was once Ffamran hid._

_The large hand caught hold of he who was once Ffamran and hauled him around the corner and slammed him into the wall before he could no more than flinch in surprise._

'There yer are boy.'

_Remus pinned him to the steel coated stone wall by one large forearm braced against his collarbone. _

_He who was once Ffamran found himself inches away from Remus' yellow toothed grinning face. The man's whiskers were coated in a congealing sheen of blood and his huge hand had left a bloody handprint across the fine embroidery of his vest right over his heart._

_He who was once Ffamran could not help but suspect there was a message in that; it seemed somewhat symbolic, though he was not sure what it symbolised. _

_A loss of innocence, or perhaps it was a transparent mark of guilt?_

'You are late.'

_He who was once Ffamran criticised in a bored, laconic voice despite the surely audible tripping of his heart and the shivers of adrenalin dancing through his veins. _

'Oho, was our little protégé worried? Did you think we would leave you all alone in the dark?'

_Ruthy slipped into his view behind Remus; he who was once Ffamran flinched to see her dressed in a lascivious parody of an old fashioned sea pirate's garb, a tri-cornered wide brimmed hat with flopping Chocobo feathers rising from the hatband, a rich red tail coat with silver gilt embroidery at the sleeves and hem and a pair of fishnet leggings mostly covered by slick, tight fitting thigh high boots with ubiquitous stiletto sharp heels. _

_It was not so much the outrageous attire as the blood that clung to her dark hair and splattered her frock coat that disturbed he who was once Ffamran. A smear of blood, still wet and glistening blighted Ruthy's sharp pointed chin. _

_She smiled when she spied him staring at it and with slow pleasure licked the smear away making a show of rolling her blood slicked tongue around in her mouth after she had done so; he who was once Ffamran turned his head away in disgust._

_Ruthy laughed and Remus released him and stepped away. For the first time he who was once Ffamran discovered that Remus and Ruthy had not come alone. A hugely obese Seeq bearing what looked like a misshapen tree branch with nails poking out of it, stood blocking the exit by virtual of his sheer girth. _

_The Seeq stared at he who was once Ffamran with undisguised contempt, he who was once Ffamran returned the look pound for pound. _

'Einar this 'ere is the boy I told you about. 'E's goin t'be joinin' t'crew, once 'e's been broken in by Nylous, that is.' _Remus grinned nastily._

'Broken in?'

_He who was once Ffamran looked sharply towards Remus but the man did not reply, instead he thrust a light weight rifle into his hands (an Altair, he realised as he glanced down at the narrow barrelled rifle). _

'Can yer shoot, boy? A weedy blighter like yer's not much good for ought else.'

_Einar, the blubber-bearing Seeq, gave an unpleasant nasal snorting laugh that grated on the nerves. He who was once Ffamran gritted his teeth._

'Well boy, can yer shoot or do I got t'throw yer at the bluidy Imperials?'

_The ghost of dawning alarm prickled at the back of he who was once Ffamran's skull. He had known that an altercation with the Imperial guard surrounding Hamish' cell was inevitable but for some reason had assumed that Remus would take care of such and he would be left out of the violence. _

_Looking down at the gun that had been forced into his hands and up at the three blood drenched pirates before him, he realised that that hope had been profoundly naïve._

_It was one thing to want well rid of the Judiciary and all associated unpleasantness; it was another to take up arms against it. _

'I can shoot.'

_It was true. He had been going to private ranges and hunting trips to Tchita with his father since he was barely taller than a rifle. Yet he had never turned a gun on another Hume – or any form of intelligent life. _

_He had never killed a man and for all the crimes he was like to commit this night (and had already done) he did not want to add murder to that list. _

_Remus had been studying him with his one remaining jaundiced eye. The man-mountain grunted something and turned leading the way towards the deeper reaches of the dungeons._

'We got the jump on dem Judges up above but their'll be coming all guns a-blazing soon enough.'

'Wait.' _He who was once Ffamran reached out a hand in an involuntary gesture towards him, though in truth the last thing he wanted to do was touch the man, Remus turned irritably back around._

'What the bluidy 'ell is it, boy? We ain't got t'time fer a ruddy picnic.'

_The mention of a picnic sliced at his nerves, a muscle in his tight clenched jaw jumped and he who was once Ffamran struggled for his usual ever present self-control. _

_Without a word, because he did not know quite what to say, he who was once Ffamran walked over to the storeroom and tapped in the code to unlock the door. _

_Curious, Ruthy exchanging a quick, silent look with Remus, walked over to the door as he who was once Ffamran opened it. _

_Anna exploded out of the room in a swirl of pale green silk and satin ribbons. She threw herself at he who was once Ffamran with nails clawed screaming curses that a gentleman's daughter should not know let alone shout at the top of her wailing lungs. _

_They hit the wall; he who was once Ffamran struggling to restrain the girl as Anna railed and scratched at him._

'How could you? How could you; how dare you! Why would you do such a thing?'

_Unwilling to hurt the girl anymore than he had already, he who was once Ffamran, put up a somewhat weak defence; he had both the training and the male strength advantage to restrain her but he did not. Every slice of her nails down his face or arms was nothing less than he deserved, after all._

'What the bluidy 'ell is goin' on 'ere?'

_A knife, appearing from nowhere and held in a huge meaty fist, curved around Anna's neck, just barely pressing into the pale skin of her throat. _

_Anna froze, with her head tilted back by Remus' other huge paw tangled in her long hair, her eyelashes wreathed in tears. Her brilliant green eyes beseeched he who was once Ffamran with a mixture of incomprehension and mute appeal in her gaze._

_He grabbed at the knife, ignoring the swift, hot jolt of pain as the wickedly sharp serrated edge sliced his palm. He pulled the offending blade out of Remus' hand by the blade and tugged the near hysterical Anna into his arms. _

'This,' _He snarled struggling to hold Anna up as her knees buckled and her sobbing threatened to dissolve into hyperventilating, _'is the daughter of Judge Magister Zaagabaath and the only way we shall reach Hamish' cell alive. I would appreciate it if you kept your hands to yourself in future.'

_He who was once Ffamran was almost shaking with rage; towards who he did not know, yet a sense of acidic burning fury cascaded through his veins. Anna, weak with fright, clung to him like a limpet._

'Please, I just want to go home now. This isn't fun anymore Ffamran…….please, please, can I go home now?'

_Sweet gods what had he become that he could do such a thing to her? _

_Ruthy had begun to chuckle, a low, velvety insidious sound. Her heels snapped across the floor as she stalked over to Ffamran and Anna._

'Oh, poor sweet child,' _she cooed to Anna reaching out to stroke her long auburn hair, _'Has the bad little boy broken your sweet little heart?'

_Ruthy winked at he who was once Ffamran, eyes dancing with wicked delight. _'I think he has. Yes, indeed, I think he has.'

_With firm and commanding hands Ruthy cupped Anna's face and stroked one thumb up her cheek along the liquid path of her tears. _

_Ruthy pulled one hand back, a perfect tear drop quivering on her thumb and, with a quick snake-like movement, darted her tongue out to lick that tear drop off the tip of her thumb nail._

_Anna flinched and whimpered sinking to her knees and wriggling backwards as far from Ruthy as she could be, pressing up against he who was once Ffamran's legs and clutching his trouser leg._

'Ffamran, please, please, let's go home. Please, I'm scared. I don't want to be here anymore.'

_He who was once Ffamran stood rigid as stone as she plucked at his trouser leg. All he could do was concentrate on breathing in and out. In and out. In and out and thinking of nothing. _

_Remus was staring at him with that one, hard, animal cunning eye. Einar was swinging his club impatiently. _

'Judge Magister Zaagabaath will not risk the life of his only child; Anna is also known to many of the guards here, they will hesitate to shoot if we keep her with us. Zaagabaath may even allow for an exchange of prisoners, Hamish, for two young Gentry hostages.'

_His words were flat and dead, devoid of either pride in his own cleverness or any noticeable reluctance to speak of such duplicity. All the while Anna huddled against his legs, shaking violently, and Remus gazed steadily right through him._

_After an intolerably long moment, Remus grinned, a flash of strong yellow teeth in his heavy, jowly face. _

'Two Gentry?'

_He who was once Ffamran bit the inside of his cheek savagery in an attempt to control his expression. Blood, thin and salty, filled his mouth. He swallowed the bitter elixir down and nodded his head calmly._

'There is no reason anyone in the Judiciary would suspect the son of the legendary Dr Cid Bunansa would be anything other than an unfortunate victim of ill-chance in all this,' _his gaze fell guiltily on the top of Anna's ruby tressed head, _'just like my betrothed.'

_It was barely more than a whisper but all heard, save maybe Anna herself, who was in an apoplexy of misery puddled on the stone floor. _

_Coldly he who was once Ffamran held out the gun to Remus, _'I'm more use to you under the guise of hostage.' _He pointed out simply, _'I shall not be needing this.'

'Yer 'ave this all thought out, do yer, boy?' _Remus sneered._

_He who was no longer Ffamran shrugged, _'Not all but enough.'

_Remus sneered but waved Ruthy forward. The woman slinked over to Ffamran and Anna detaching a set of shackles from her belt. When he glanced a question to her, wondering how and why she was in possession of hand cuffs, she smiled wickedly._

'I always keep a set of shackles with me, dear boy, they have so many uses; both business and pleasure.'

_She slithered up to him and dangled the cuffs before his eyes then, with callous lack of regard, she snatched up one of Anna's hands and clamped the metal cuff around her wrist; Ruthy raised one caustic eyebrow at him._

_Recognising her intent he who was once Ffamran refused to allow a glower of anger and distaste from revealing his feelings and held out one wrist to her. With a toothy smirk all her own Ruthy snapped the other metal cuff around his wrist, binding he and Anna together (kidnapped and kidnapper together enchained)._

'I now pronounce you betrayer and betrayed; don't be shy now, feel free to express your true feelings, my dears.'

_He who was once Ffamran bit back his instinctive, furious response and looked away from the hated woman. Anna looked up at him from the floor, eyes large and glazed with uncomprehending hurt, her lips almost white with fright. _

_As Einar and Remus led the way in the rough direction of the solitary confinement holding cells, He who was once Ffamran struggled to pull the suddenly obstinately immobile Anna to her feet._

'I will not go. You cannot make me.' _She gritted out between her teeth having chosen the worst moment to find her courage. _

_He who was once Ffamran stifled a curse of pure anxiety fuelled exasperation and dropped down on his haunches beside her. Anna spat at him._

'I hate you – you – _you_ _traitor_.'

_Having initially recoiled as Anna's saliva hit his cheek, hot and slick as the shame broiling inside him, a strange calm and indifference welled up inside him at her words. Calmly, with his free hand, he wiped away her spit._

_Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in and then out. Breathe in…._

'No doubt you have cause,' _he conceded meditatively,_ 'but remember this _sweetheart_, as much as I've hurt and betrayed you, I still do care for your well-being,' _he met her furious, terrified eyes with his own, shuttered and blinkered against his true feelings, _'but I'm the only one._ They' and Anna knew precisely to whom he referred, _'will not hesitate to hurt you to achieve what they want.'

_Anna's eyes grew large and she sucked in a sharp breath, he who was once Ffamran, from the distant place inside where nothing could hurt him, insulated from his own sins, nodded his head recognising that she had understood his implicit point._

'Do what I say, when I say, and I promise you, you will not be hurt and come the morning you will be home and safe.'

_The words left a foul taste of foreshadowing in his mouth as he spoke. The credo of the sky pirate, the brigand and the traitor, fell naturally from his lips. It almost seemed like destiny fulfilled. _

_Anna, grudgingly accepting his help, rose to her feet. She was breathing in ragged, rapid gulps of shallow air, but there was a strange bravery reflected in her bright, hard green eyes._

'Is this _flying, _Ffamran, is this what you wanted?' _she hissed venomously. _

_He who was once Ffamran met her eyes with a quiet, distant resolve, _'No, but at least _this_,' _he waved his free hand to encapsulate everything he had done and would do and everything he had lost and stolen and bartered away to reach this point, _'is a fate of my _own_ choosing.'

_He would sooner chose to be a pirate's slave with his eyes open then to sleepwalk into infamy under a Judge's armour. _

_Anna had nothing to say to that, or to the fine, heated rage that lit his eyes with a dark, twisted zeal she could not fathom. He led her by her cuffed hand, still and cold in his, towards the others. _

_Ruthy was waiting for them by the t-junction in the corridor; she smiled as her cold, gimlet gaze dropped down to their linked and shackled hands. _

'I have a new name for you, dear boy, one I think is apt,' _she smiled sweetly._

_He who was once Ffamran frowned, _'Excuse me?'

_Ruthy sashayed over to him, her hips swaying as she allowed her bull whip to uncoil loosely across the floor, where it hissed across the unpolished stone with a sound reminiscent of a snakes scaled underbelly. _

_Lips curling upward in a smile devoid of anything but a twisted form of lust, she reached out a darting hand to stroke over his scratched cheeks. Her thumb brushing his full bottom lip before he jerked away from her as if her touch burned._

_Ruthy chuckled silkily and pressed her body along the length of his, as she backed him into the wall and deftly brushed Anna to the side. Anna stared at him with fresh betrayal glittering in her appalled eyes dancing with unshed tears. _

'_Balthier_,' _Ruthy rolled the unfamiliar syllables on her tongue. _

_With his back against the wall, he who was no longer Ffamran raised his free hand to push Ruthy back, disturbed by her proximity; the head-reeling juxtaposition of strong, heady perfume and the slaughterhouse stink of blood and viscera that exuded from her flesh. _

'Have you heard the story of the Rogue Balthier, dear boy?' _Ruthy whispered pressing against the tentative hand he who was once Ffamran had placed between his and her bodies, forcing him to either let his hand drop or lock his elbow, hand pressed flat against her bosom. _

'No, I don't think so,' _He who was no longer Ffamran felt a faint flutter of panic, a muddle of common sense, warning him to keep a safe distance from this monstrous woman, and rising lust dizzying him. _

_He let his hand drop as the feel of her chest rising and falling beneath his palm alarmed him, making his flesh creep. _

_Ruthy surged forward with an almost liquid motion; her breath was cold against his neck as she leaned in. She chuckled against his ear, _'A shame, perhaps I will let you have a copy of the fable, dear boy, you may find it highly _instructional_….and, of course, I shall be very happy to help in that _instruction, _my darling, wicked _Balthier.' _

_Before he could react, mind whirling in an exquisite composite of revulsion and desire, Ruthy darted in and kissed him full on the lips. He who was once Ffamran recoiled and the back of his skull smacked against the wall. _

_Ruthy darted forward with him, her teeth biting down on his bottom lip, all he could smell and taste and feel was Ruthy, a sickening, exhilarating maelstrom of blood and sensuality. _

'Get away from him you, you – wanton hussy!'

_Anna shoved into Ruthy, knocking her off balance and disengaging her tongue and teeth and lips from he who was once Ffamran. _

_Gratefully, freed of the older woman's allure, he shook his head and instinctively clutched Anna to him like a talisman against the other woman's raw, cruel, sensuality. _

'Now, now, little girl, he's not your dear little sweetheart anymore.' _Ruthy purred with deliberate distain before she turned her back and sauntered away down the righthand path of the t-junction._

'He's something all together different now. A bad little boy filled with wicked schemes and wicked dreams and a heart filled with cold venom.'

_After a moment and with deliberate nonchalance Ruthy turned back over her shoulder and snapped her fingers, _'Come, come now _Balthier_ we've kept Remus waiting long enough.'

_He hesitated for a second, feeling Anna's resistance as she tugged on his hand, trying to hold him back; trying to hold him to an old life and an old name that no longer fitted._

_He stepped forward, drawing Anna along with him, deaf to her muted protests, and left his old self behind like a serpent shedding his skin. _

_Without a word of ascent, without even knowing its providence, by stepping forward at Ruthy's beck and call, he accepted the name _Balthier _and even then, in that midnight moment of no return, he suspected that this new calling would prove more of a curse than a blessing. _

* * *

_A/N: yes, I know she's evil, skanky and sadistic but c'mon, Ffamran was sixteen (and a repressed Archadian aristocrat) and she was a woman in tight leathers and a whip…..when you consider the women he seems drawn to (think of Fran's attire and Ashe's attitude), there is a pattern! _

_As to the ancient Archadian 'fable' of the Rogue Balthier…..more on that later! ;)_


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty: Fran's Story Pt: 2: Fran alone; Fran I am 

Balthier stared up at the ceiling of his cabin and wondered vaguely why it was that the painted steel shell appeared to be melting. It occurred to him that this was probably something he should be concerned over.

It could not be a good thing for his airship to melt.

_Must tell Fran…..ship is dissolving…._

The back of his head hurt obscenely. He lay propped up on pillows that cut into his aching, distended flesh like a bed of rusted nails. His head felt as if a large wet sack of sand had been inserted within the cage of his skull and left there to fester; blinking hurt. His _eyelids_ hurt.

It was also intolerably hot in here. So hot in fact that a heat haze hung in the air, distorting the forms of familiar objects until they appeared strange and vaguely sinister.

One of his white shirts, hung on the back of his bed over the steel frame of the bedpost, was waving at him. Balthier frowned and watched the uninhabited shirt sleeve rise up in the wavering air. He thought the salute the shirt gave him was somewhat disrespectful.

He was not about to take insubordination from his daywear. A man had standards after all.

He made a lunge at the offending piece of apparel and then with a strangled (somewhat pitiful) groan of pain slumped back down as numerous points of agony in his swollen, miserable body made themselves heard.

Still he was feeling markedly better than he had felt the last time he was even remotely aware of his surroundings.

The door to his cabin opened and Fran appeared.

'The Strahl is melting Fran.' He tried to speak but ended up coughing. His tongue was a heavy, unwieldy lump of flesh in his throat. It suddenly occurred to him that he was intolerably thirsty.

What day was it anyway?

Fran, who held in her hand an unmarked bottle of the same strangely pungent liquid she had been feeding him consistently (despite his vociferous protests) since his fever burned at its brightest, paused to consider his statement. She cocked an eyebrow.

'No it is not.'

'It's not?' Balthier rolled his eyes to look up at the ceiling once more and had to concede that it now looked fairly solid.

'No.' Fran confirmed coming to sit on the edge of his bed and tipping his chin back to feel the enlarged glands at his throat. Still gripping his face in one of her large hands she peered intently into his eyes.

Setting the potion bottle aside on the tiny, bolted to the wall bedside shelf, Fran raised her hand and passed three fingers before his eyes. Instinctively Balthier tried to follow the motion but soon his vision fractured into double, then triple, blurred impressions of her moving hand.

'How many fingers do I raise, Balthier?' She asked him. He closed his eyes in confusion and pain.

'Fran, please, now is not the time for arithmetic; can you not see I am ill?'

Balthier decried as he tried to roll away from her and moaned once more when the very thought of movement caused phantom pains to chase over the sensitive centres of his brain, yet for all that, he was still feeling considerably better now than he remembered feeling before.

_Better_ was relative of course.

A soft, just faintly exasperated, sigh from Fran was the only answer his whining evoked. Balthier dimly recalled that they had had this very same conversation before…._many_ times before...in the recent past.

A dart of guilt swept through him when it occurred to him foggily that Fran probably had better things to do than nurse him.

Although, to be fair, there were a multitude of activities he would sooner be engaged in than lying here, incapacitated by fever and unpleasant fluid build up, so all things considered, he felt he could be absolved of all guilt.

_Damned Mist poisoning….damned Hamish for making me set foot in the gods forsaken wreckage of Nabudis…..what have I ever done to deserve this?_

A pause while Balthier considered just precisely which crimes and misdemeanours he might now be paying penance for. Judiciously he decided to cut off this current line of self-pitying internal monologue before some wandering deity (which he did not, in fact, believe in) decided to punish him for his impudence all the more.

Clumsily he reached out a hand to Fran and tried to squeeze her long, slender, elegantly obscene hand in his. His fingers, swollen into a misshapen fist, would not obey.

'Talk to me Fran.'

Fran decided to ignore him, as he was fairly sure she had done for the last however many endless days of misery he had spent drifting in and out of consciousness.

Incidentally and, somewhat strangely, he had lost count of the number of times he had come back to some semblance of awareness to find Fran sitting watching him sleep, only for her to then excuse herself as soon as he was awake enough to engage in conversation.

_There was evil in the Wood and its name was Fran. _

He had not forgotten that enigmatic statement; a confession that seemed inconceivable to Balthier.

Fran was not evil. Of late his preconceptions in many areas had been either shaken to the foundations or broken completely, but if there was one part of his life he was certain of, it was Fran.

'Just because I am wildly delirious does not mean that I can be easily diverted. I do not like being ignored.'

He told her while reaching for the bottle of unnamed libation Fran had brought in with her. Balthier had no idea what the noxious concoction was made of but his throat was raw and frankly had she chosen to poison him over the last few days he would have considered it a blessing.

Fran uncorked the bottle and pushed it firmly into his fumbling hands while still refusing to speak.

The noxious potion, once imbibed, was as foul as he suspected and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, hoping that the cure would not prove to be, in actual fact, worse than the disease.

Eyes wet and shiny from the effort not to spit the foul stuff back up (which was beneath his dignity, even if he did currently resemble a pink and white splotched flan, he still possessed his sense of self worth, gods damn it) Balthier struggled to find his voice before Fran fled once more.

'You are poisoning me.' He coughed, 'The least you can do in compensation for my suffering is finish your tale. You have left me in suspense these last, however many, days and I am intolerably curious.'

Fran quirked a cool, caustic eyebrow, 'You have been insensate for three days.'

He managed a faint smile. He was still far from his usual gregarious self but at least he was able to sit up (slowly, carefully, biting his lip against the pain) and assume a thin veneer of attentive lucidity.

'I have been insensate with curiosity.' He argued, somewhat paradoxically, winning a slight, indulgent, head shake from Fran.

'You told me that to ask was not selfish, Fran. Well I am asking now.' Balthier met her eyes as calmly and coolly as he could under the less than ideal circumstances. 'What happened to you Fran, what happened in the Wood?'

It felt a little like a betrayal; asking such a question. He would despise being asked such himself. Wasn't that the very reason for the leading man, the clothes and the artifice? To create a blind and a distraction so that no one asked that one simple, horrible, question.

_Who are you and where did you come from? _

Fran dropped her gaze; his Fran, his strong, regal and unwavering Fran, could not meet his eyes. He almost wanted to feign unconsciousness again (he was fairly sure he had passed out from pain enough in the last few days to make a convincing show of it) but something in the way she held herself made him hold firm.

Balthier could not help but wonder if Fran had not been waiting, silently behind her ruby eyes, for someone to come out and ask her. To address that mute pain that flickered in her eyes and coloured her expressions from time to time; she was a stranger from a strange place and why had no had ever asked her why she came to be here.

'There was evil in the Wood and its name was Fran.' he whispered when her silence persisted. She looked up at him sharply as she perched on the edge of his bed.

'You remember?' she sounded surprised.

He managed a wry smirk, though, obscurely, he felt a little hurt. Balthier had long ago accepted and embraced his own (legion) of personal faults (and in so doing made a virtue of them; at least within his own mind) but it irked him that Fran did not know, did not comprehend, that to him her word was law.

'I listen, Fran, to every word you say. I _believe_ every word you say.' Which was the more meaningful confession, for a self imposed cynic and nihilist such as he, to make.

A shooting bolt of muscle cramping pain ripped through him and he winced. 'Fran please, humour me, if nothing else, for I feel a bout of excruciating pain in the offing.'

That was an understatement. It felt as though his stomach, intestines, and other sundry internal viscera had made a unified effort to crawl up his oesophagus in a writhing, acidic mass.

He sunk back down into bed, given in (if only momentarily) to the weakness of his own fragility. Still it was not quite so bad this time. He was able to bite back on the whimpers at least.

'Talk to me Fran.' he repeated his request.

There was silence for a moment and then, as Balthier closed his eyes in defeat, regretting that he had not the gift of empathy and compassion to enable Fran to tell him what she seemed to want to tell him, there was a rustle of bed sheets and Fran settled herself along the bed beside him.

'Have you ever stood in the midst of a lightening storm, Balthier?'

He cracked open an eye to look at her thoughtfully, the cramps and spasms hurt him, feeling akin to lightening dancing over exposed nerves.

'I can't say that I have ever seen the sense in standing in the wind and rain.' He admitted managing admirably to suppress the pain that squeezed down his vocal cords.

'For Humes it is a foolish act,' Fran nodded slowly, deep in thought, 'to you there is merely wind and rain. You cannot hear the scream of the storm. You hear not the myriad voices, light and static, fire and water, that fill the sky.'

'Loud is it?' The effort to resist whimpering in pain had drawn his body rigid under the sheets and his voice, light as air and fragile as a falling leaf, did nothing to hide his discomfort this time.

Fran reached down and took his hand, which had curled into a spasmodic claw she rubbed the flesh of his palm, forcing feeling and mobility back into his fingers. 'It is cacophony. Your Hume world is full of sound. So many voices raised in opposition to the other, hissing, bellowing and whispering with noise; so much noise; too many voices.'

Watching her massage first his right and then his left hand Balthier considered his words carefully. He suspected that the next few moments would be pivotal.

'I take it that it is,' he racked his brain for an alternative to 'dull' (which was his first response to, and leading impression of, her former home) ' less _divisive _in Golmore?'

Fran stopped her ministrations and looked at him sharply, a dart of appreciation flickered in the depths of her eyes and Balthier had the suspicion that he had provided her with a better answer than he could have hoped.

Still she was hardly forthcoming with the reminiscences and patience was not his forte.

'There is but one voice in Golmore, that of the Wood, and many echoes.'

The pain in his body began to recede, with gratifying speed, and he sat up laboriously. 'The Viera, these echoes; I take it you refer to your kin?'

Again he was rewarded with another appraising and slightly surprised look from Fran. 'Most Humes do not grasp the way of the Wood and her kin so keenly.'

He managed a faint shadow of his famous grin, 'Fran please, there is more to me than a pretty face; I am nothing if not keen.'

The faintest gleam of a smile stroked her face, 'That is certain truth.' she murmured with just enough wry reflection to make him suspect that his 'keenness' was not always universally appreciated.

'It is hard to speak of the Green Way and of Viera, so long has it been since I have heard the one and been of the other. To a Hume the way of Viera and Wood is beyond comprehension. You can know not what it is to be but an extension of a greater whole.'

A moments consternation passed over Balthier, a shadow of his own past lived for the benefit, and in the shadow, of his father and his father's beloved empire.

'I cannot comprehend a willing submission to such Fran, but I think you do me, and Humes, a disservice if you believe we do not know what it is to live subservient to a greater power, or a will not our own.' He answered her seriously.

Fran did not answer but something like a question sparked in her quizzical expression. However Balthier would not be tricked nor diverted so easily into revealing himself before Fran gave up her secrets.

She seemed to read his resolve in his eyes and, with a sigh of resignation, she began her tale anew.

'The Humes trespassers in Golmore were ignored. Viera would never harm those who wander under the canopy of the Wood but aid the Humes they did not. The Green Way said that Fran should aid them not, heed them not, offer no assistance to speed their passage through green paths. Fran obeyed for Fran was Viera and her will was the Wood's.'

Balthier said nothing and made no comment over the curious fact that Fran referred to herself in the third person. The process of returning to her past seemed like a regression, as if in doing so Fran relinquished her autonomy and her very self, to become once more nothing more than the Woods 'echo'.

But fifty years (or there abouts) of self-determination had left indelible mark and the living, breathing, thinking Fran who sat beside him could not hide the flurry of emotion that passed like storm clouds over the serenity of her face; consternation, confusion, pain and lingering grief.

'Fran was troubled; the Wood said to leave the Humes to their fate but Fran was unsure.'

To Balthier's increasing concern Fran swung her legs back down onto the floor of the cabin, in doing so perching on the edge of the bed with her back to him. Balthier grew increasingly apprehensive when Fran's shoulders hunched.

To see his graceful Fran in such a submissive pose disturbed him greatly.

Balthier's hands now itched not with pain but with a desire (that he knew would not be appreciated) to place his hands on her shoulders or find some way of comforting her.

He had never imagined that Fran would ever need such support; had it made any difference he would have retracted his earlier request for her to bare her soul deep wounds to him, but it would not help.

Balthier had been right before, he did not need to know her private pain, yet, alas, it seemed, however, that Fran had need to tell.

'Fran watched the Humes. She watched them suffer, fight for life, forage for food. She watched the Hume man shelter and protect the others. She watched him grow weak so that the women and children need not go hungry. Fran watched and she questioned the wisdom of the Wood; she doubted.'

Fran bowed her head as that last, pained, confession escaped her throat in a whisper. Balthier watched her with acute attention. He watched her proud posture collapse as she folded in on herself.

'To question is not Viera. It is not the way of my kin. We do not question for the Wood gives all answers. A lone voice raised in question is discord. It is aberration. Fran was discord; Fran was not one with the Wood and the Green Way.'

Balthier watched Fran suffer for something fifty years passed and pondered that he understood, that he could _recognise_, precisely what ailed her.

This pain, though the details and circumstances be different, was one they shared. It was the pain of one who has discovered that they do not belong in their home and cannot, _will not_, ever be able to submit to the rules that govern all that they had ever known.

In fraught whisper, her cool tones maligned and distorted by uncharacteristic emotion, Fran continued.

'Fran could not be content. She spoke to Jote. She spoke with the elders of Eruyt. She travelled deep to the heart of Golmore and spoke her soul to the Wood. Answers she did receive but no solace did they give.'

Fran jerked around so that she could meet his eyes suddenly. Her own large and Inhume irises were aglow with desperation and quiet anguish that even he had not thought her capable of (excluding moments of Mist induced madness).

Fran's voice never rose in volume to higher than a whisper, yet the anguish and lasting confusion in her voice transformed her every utterance into a dagger blade of bitterness that stabbed through the cabin.

'Fran went back to the Humes. She did not know what else to do. She feared that some strange affliction passed on from the Humes had brought such doubt to her and she blamed the Humes. She did challenge the male Hume.'

Fran fell abruptly silent, still bent over herself, hunched over with her hair falling either side of her face so he could not read her expression.

Balthier spoke carefully, quietly, no inflection in his voice, as one might to a volatile child or a woman in the midst of violent desperation.

'What did he say?'

Fran shook her head, ears twitching with some deep, repressed, emotion.

'That he sought only the safety of those he escorted. That he sought neither to disturb nor disrupt the Viera, nor trespass over long within the jungle. He asked only the aid of Fran to speed the passage through Golmore of he and those whom he had promised to protect with his life.'

'That does not sound unreasonable.' Balthier suggested carefully, watching Fran.

He watched her claw tips poke through the thin cotton of his bed sheets, mangling the cotton. Her expression was calm, her eyes desolate, but those plucking, potentially lethal hands twisting the bedding, told their own story.

The fabric tore audibly as her fists closed spasmodically. Words spilled forth from her lips; questions that had lingered and festered within her soul for fifty years.

'What is Fran if she is not Viera? What is Fran if she questions what is true to all Viera? The Wood is purpose. The Green Way is the only way in Golmore. If Fran cannot be one with the whole then what is she?'

Balthier pursed his lips; it might have been the last dregs of fever emboldening him or it may, possibly, have been a moment of pure unselfish altruism that made him reach for her. Perhaps it was the Hume imperative to reach out and offer comfort to those in need that made him reach out and clasp her hands, gently pulling her fingers free of the tattered bed sheets.

'She is Fran.' He answered her. It was the only comfort he could give. It was the truth and it proved to be enough.

Fran's spine unbowed, her queenly head tilted up and she met his eyes.

'Yes, I am Fran.' The ghost of a smile graced her features.

'What became of the Humes?' Balthier asked her though he suspected he knew. It would have taken more than doubt and question to sever Fran from her ties to Golmore and her kin.

Fran nodded, recognising that he knew, that he understood, what end her tale would have and silently thankful for an understanding that came without judgement.

Yet some pains should not be borne, always and forever, in silence, even for someone such as Fran. Sometimes a wound must be re-opened before one can accept that to bleed is sometimes good – that some wounds must be borne simply to affirm that the bearer of the scars has truly _lived_.

'Fran….' she hesitated, and reconsidered her words, '…._I..._spoke often with the Hume, for my mind would not rest. No aid did I give him for still I believed myself Viera and true.'

She shook her head and once more the curtain of her hair fell like a silent shroud of self-reproach to obscure her expression and cast her eyes in shadow.

'I did watch the Hume and his dependents but nothing did I do to alter the course of their struggles. Oft times the Hume man would ask of me no more than which path he should choose through Golmore and never did I give answer, though an answer I had.'

Fran dropped her gaze even further, lowering her head in obvious shame.

'A day came when I sought the Humes along the deep and shadow blackened paths of Golmore and came upon a strange sight. Hellhounds did gather in a pack of six or more. This was strange indeed; Hellhounds are savage but rarely gather in larger number than three.'

Fran shivered, shoulders bowing once more. Balthier, sensing the tension that tightened every muscle in her body, shifted closer and brushed the pads of his thumb, in lazy circular motion across her upturned palms, her hands still cradled in his.

Balthier did not think over much on what he did, as he traced the lines etched deep into her flesh with his thumb nails, except that he wanted to comfort her without breaching her barriers or intruding on her pain.

Fran's voice, when she continued, was muted and low.

'There was among the Hume number a child that carried a piece of blue cloth, for reasons that Viera could not understand. That cloth was in fragments held in the jaws of two quarrelling hellhounds. There were many fragments of the Hume encampment upon the leaf strewn path.'

Balthier nodded, his suspicions confirmed, he spoke calmly. 'The Hume man chose the wrong path through the jungle I presume?'

For a long moment silence was his only answer; Fran's hands pooled in her lap.

Despite the aches in his own still stiff and swollen digits Balthier continued to stroke circles across her palms with his thumbs; around and around in simple repetition. They both looked down and watched the quiet, lazy passage of his fingers.

Fran stirred just a little but made no effort to withdraw from his touch. Her words fell like a sorrowful rain down upon their two bowed heads.

'Other Viera had gathered, alerted by the snarls and howls of the hellhounds. For many hours we searched for remains and found little. Golmore absorbs all fallen flesh but resists that which lives and is not Viera. I had known this always but only that day did such knowledge offend.'

Another silence this time strangely companionable; Balthier was many things, a fair proportion of them less than admirable, but he had never been judgemental. Too many sins lurked in his heart to cast aspersions on others and he would never dream of doing so to one so far above reproach as Fran.

Perhaps strengthened by his lack of reaction, the simple acceptance of a tragedy not of Fran's making that had occurred many years before his birth, Fran continued with her tale.

'Jote said that the Humes had chosen their own fate; we had warned them of their danger and they heeded us not. The Green Way took their fallen flesh to feed her growth and the Wood spoke only of the seasons and the coming thaw. All was as it should be but I was not.'

Fran halted suddenly, words drying up like a sudden draught. It did not matter for he understood anyway. He knew.

He spoke up; a memory for a memory exchanged.

'When I was perhaps eleven Archadia brought down the Republic of Landis. It had been a long campaign and many thousands had died on both sides.'

Balthier mused, head bowed over the figure of eight pattern he traced upon the flawless flesh of her palms.

'I remember my father took me to see the victory parade. They carried effigies of the fallen generals of the Republic and stopped at strategic intervals so the children could jeer and throw rotten fruit at them.'

Fran had lifted her head and was watching him intently he could feel it. Despite this, Balthier, caught in threads of the almost forgotten memory, did not look up. He concentrated on the smooth, soft, sensitive skin of Fran's palms.

'I remember that it _scared_ me to see such a thing and I pleaded with my father to let me go home.' He chuckled dryly, bitterly, 'Six years later I betrayed my Empire and my father by setting loose one of those self same surviving generals.'

Fran closed her fingers over his as he tracked absent patterns across her skin. He looked up at her. She nodded as she smiled, fleeting and sad.

A pain shared is not a pain halved; such things are fallacy made to coerce children into acts of ill-advised confiding, but, Balthier suspected, there _was_ strength to be found in the acknowledgement of a shared pain.

He saw that truth reflected clearly in Fran's eyes.

'The Viera were satisfied; all questions answered by the Wood before my kin had need to ask them. Viera care not for that which lives and breathes beyond Golmore's canopy and her vine swathed paths; but I burned with conflict. I heard the Green Way and the voice of the Wood but no longer could I accept that which I heard.'

She stopped once more and Balthier could almost hear the silent question she would never voice; a question he had asked himself in his darkest hours.

_Why was I different; why could I not be satisfied? _

'There was evil in the Wood but its name was not Fran.' Balthier said firmly and watched Fran's eyes widen.

She drew back instinctively, something like the distant ghost of racial anger at the inferred rebuke stirring and then swiftly dying in her eyes.

She looked at him from behind the cool mask of stoical acceptance. Difference was as it was. She and he had lost their home but gained their integrity. It was not a fair exchange but it was as they had chosen.

'There were answers in the voice of the Wood. There was absolution; Viera and content I could have been. The fallen Humes forgotten with the coming of the new buds of spring; but _I, _Fran, did not wish to be absolved. I did not seek the self same answers that brought pain to my soul.'

'So you left your Wood and the one voice that you could no longer obey.'

It was not a question for Balthier knew the answer. Her choice had been his choice; the only difference was the circumstance.

For Fran it had been the Wood and for him it was the ghost of his father's voice that haunted the shadowed paths of a life abandoned and disregarded but still quietly mourned.

'Yes.' Fran said with simple relief that he could comprehend both the enormity and the simplicity of her decision.

'To Jote, my sister, I gave my reasons. Viera begin in the Wood but it need not be the only end they may seek. I alone decided that I must leave. Make of myself a refugee of fate. I would be within the Hume lands as the Humes had been in Golmore. It was the only way that I, Fran, who has ever more been Fran alone, could be at peace.'

Balthier felt himself smile, 'Fran alone?' he queried.

She nodded, 'I am Viera no longer, merely Fran.'

'_Merely _Fran; surely you jest? You are not 'merely' anything.' Balthier felt his smile grow, sickness and pain forgotten (if only for this short moment).

Fran studied him curiously, cocking her head to the side, 'To Viera I am fallen; to the Wood I am lost. To Humes I am different and set apart always. Thus I am Fran and Fran alone.'

Balthier slipped his hand free of hers to wave it airily in the air in absent, arrogant, dismissal of such pessimism. 'To Humes in general, perhaps, but that is not what you are to me.'

Something sparked in Fran's eyes, a minute change in expression that suggested she recognised a jest in the offing and would reciprocate.

'I am to you some thing other, Balthier? What purpose do I fulfil?' she asked and there was a definite undercurrent of something other than curiosity, perhaps amusement and something deeper, but he could not accurately interpret it.

Thus, with nothing to go on and no cues to garner her reaction except his own instinct, Balthier took a deep breath and told her the truth (wrapped in patient jest) that he had longed to tell her for these many months passed.

'I would think that was obvious Fran; you are my partner.' He smiled crookedly, the scoundrel peeking through his ill-health. 'And I assure you, dearest Fran, that being the most trusted and revered partner of Ivalice's greatest and _only_ leading man is a position that prohibits you from ever being _merely Fran alone _ever again.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, caustic and quietly amused, 'Then you suggest it is my fate to be no longer fallen Viera, but to be, instead, an adjunct to a Hume with delusions of grandeur?'

He frowned at her sharply in mock offence, 'You wound me Fran, you should be honoured that I am willing to share my infamy with you, and in any regard I am trying to give you good cheer, the least you could do is accept my sympathy with good grace.'

Fran gave him a level look, 'you give very poor cheer, pirate, it also does seem to me that you gain more benefit than I from this arrangement.'

Balthier fought the smile that played at his lips, 'I am a trifle unwell you may recall; I cannot be expected to be at my best.' He pointed out acerbically.

'I thought I was immensely empathetic, in any event.' He added peevish.

'Your empathy is fast undone, however, with every word you thus speak.' Fran rejoined as they fell into the happy verbal pattern of tit for tat jests that amused them both greatly.

Balthier settled back against his pillows, much improved in disposition and health, but lethargic from his fever. 'Admit it Fran, there are worse fates that could befall you than partnership with the leading man.' He challenged.

Fran rose from the edge of the bed, tall, proud and head held high once more. She moved without answering towards the door of his cabin and then hesitated at the threshold with her hands braced on either side of the door frame.

She turned back to face him and the mirth left him at the seriousness of her expression. She nodded firmly.

'Fran alone I have been these many years, and will be in time to come again, but in the here and now I am thankful that if I must walk alone with my questions, then at least, you too, do walk beside me.'

Balthier nodded equally gravely, almost solemnly, 'Always. I would not have it any other way.'

Fran smiled, just faintly, but with honesty. 'Then we are content, are we not, and the questions that haunt us do not hurt so very much.'

'We shall have our answers one day, Fran, I am certain of it.'

Fran looked at him from the doorway, steadily and coolly, then she nodded; the smile lingering. 'I do not doubt it. The leading man must have his day of triumph, must he not?'

Balthier nodded though he did not smile, to smile was to hide from the truth and he wanted her to see this truth. 'Of course and when I do I shall share the answers I find with you, Fran. I will not leave you to be Fran alone if I can help it.'

Fran's smile blossomed for just the briefest of moments, swift and sharp and as fleeting as sunlight on the surface of a lake.

'I know.'

She said and then she was gone from the room.

* * *

_A/N: Sigh...have you ever wanted to express something that seems so clear in your mind but you can't quite capture it? Well that is this chapter. I've agonised over Fran's confession and I'm still not completely happy but I just can't write it any better than this (sorry!). Anyway feedback, as always, is gratefully received. ;)_


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-One: Balthier's beginning Pt 1: Break and reform; the making of the man is the breaking of the boy

_A/N: This is the beginning of the 'fable of Balthier' back-story, which sheds light on how Balthier came to reluctantly work for both Nylous and Remus and begin to plot the scheme that saw him meet Fran in the beginning of 'Legends'._

_As I am playing with a stream of consciousness narrative type of thing in this chapter, (linear narrative – who needs it – eh?) it is entirely possible this will be a little, well, weird! I just hope it won't be too indecipherable ;) _

_P.S: warning this chapter does have some nasty scenes in it (yes, I'm causing pain to our protagonist again!) but hopefully nothing too gratuitous. _

* * *

_The woman perched on the stool in the small windowless room, hot and fetid with the foul stench of blood, sweat and Hume suffering, opened the leather bound covers of the slim volume she held within the cradle of her hands. _

_She licked the tip of one finger as the single guttering candle flame flickered threatening to go out in the rush of displaced air as the whip sliced through the air towards the bloody mess of a boyish back._

_The woman waited for the scream as the cat-o-nine-tails tore through ruined flesh, each flechette daubed in skin and blood already. It would not be long before the bright, garish gleam of purplish muscle would separate and reveal the dull lustre of pearly white bone. _

_Blood flew, the body jerked and hands convulsed reflexively in the manacles attached to chains hanging from the ceiling of the stone cell. The boy-man's legs were bent at the knees; he had long since lost the power to hold himself up and he risked dislocating both shoulders as he dangled from his chains. _

_The woman lingered for a moment, finger poised to turn aside the flypaper and begin her reading, but her audience disappointed her by uttering no more than a pained, wheezing, inhalation as the black liveried Rozzarian man drew back his arm in readiness for another lash._

_In a clear, lilting, voice the woman began to read aloud from the book in her hands. She crossed right leg over left in slow and alluring fashion, though her captive audience was no longer aware enough to notice, or care to be titillated. _

'Have you ever heard tell of the Rogue Balthier? A man of jest, a man of zest; a very fancy dandy man with ready smile and greedy eyes. This man, today, be our tale about. Such a man as he be rare indeed; his like not to be seen but once in a moonstide.'

_He who hung in chains (he had a name once but he could not quite recall what it had been) knew that the whip was coming. _

_The kiss of the braided, ball-bearing tongues of leather had become so familiar that his exposed nerves and torn flesh twitch almost in expectation for another leathery kiss. _

_It is both consolation and desolation to severed and abraded psyche that he rarely has to wait long for another lash. The song of the hydra-headed whip slicing through the air has become the only measurement of times passing that he can now recognise. _

_Time, as beaten out by the descending whip, passed quickly; the whiplash fast and frequent passage of bloody seconds matching the thunderous tripping of his heart. _

_The lash of the whip has parted skin, exposed nerve and braided tendon; liquid agony subsides in him and a sense of heightened awareness that exceeds and diminishes physicality, emerges. He is not there in his flesh; he is elsewhere now._

'Lo, and betide our jolly lad, our happy cad, the Rogue Balthier, was ever a man of quick pride and eager wits. 'Look you,' he would cry to all and sundry, 'mark me as I go, for I am what you can merely wish to be!''

_The woman in the chair glanced up at her audience, frowning to see his eyes closed and sweat dripping from his grey face now lax with the stupor of blood loss and exhaustion. She waved back the whip-wielding man with an imperious hand. The man withdrew reluctantly whip trailing along the blood splattered flagstones. _

_In the woman's palms the healing fire quickened; cold fire and a deft flick of her wrist sent the paltry curative (more a preservative than aught else) into, and through, the flesh of the boy-man whose hairless chest bespoke of his painful youth. _

'Tsk-tsk, my bright boy, look sharp, pay attention. No dallying in daydreams, for you.' _The woman approached him and clasped his face, tilting his lolling chin up. Eyelids fluttered open in response but his mind was elsewhere and else when. _

_To fall into memory was not so much respite as inevitability, for him. His mind betrayed him and recent past surged up in a floodtide of pain too raw to be called merely regret. _

'The Judiciary Gil is in there.'

_In the past, that fateful night, he pointed to the darkened window, the black blind eye in the red brick and ivy strewn solidity of the house._

_The night was fraught with sirens and metal clad feet pounding paved streets. The Capital in uproar long before the break of dawn but Grovesnor Square in Highgarden Terrace was still at peace, the privileged safe abed behind their ancient hedgerows and sturdy brick façades. _

_The house of his childhood was equally serene in silence; the old shirt on his back and the flat cap pressed down, bill lowered over his eyes, felt strange to him; an ill-fitting costume that would surely fool no one. _

_In pauper's clothes and reeking of gun powder and the heady scent of treason, he led the pirates forward, over the high wall of the gardens, and into the realm of a childhood he sought to forsake. _

_The scent of wild roses (planted by the mother he had never known and left to run wild in her absence) hung heavy and thick in the artificial stillness of this chaotic night._

'From Avengine to Balfonheim, criss-crossing the compass did our roguish boy go. Our happy villain, with a pocket full of swindled Gil and trailing broken promises with every jaunty step, did gallivant from wide horizon to brightling dawn.'

_In the here and now the woman paced before him holding the book before her face. The click-clop of her heels across the flagstones created a staccato beat in sympathetic union with the laboured pounding of his heart._

_Her voice was the only one he had heard in days; his abuser, his torturer, never spoke. It was not, after all, information that his captors sought with every pound of flesh sheared from his back; it was his will and his pride. _

_He could surrender that in silence. It was to memory that he owed his dues. _

_To the moonless night and the rose garden he descended once more without his consent, returning to deeds wrought that could not be undone. _

'Out with you, you filthy reprobate; I know you are in here. Oho, but you shall rue the day you sought to steal from Cidolfus Bunansa.'

_The barrel of the gun, gold and tooled with pearl inlay, surely too ornate, too fanciful and heavy to be practical, turned unerringly towards his hiding place. _

_Fear, rank and sickening, seeped into the unseasonably chill air. It rose like a miasma to mingle with the stink of roses to cloud his senses and paralyse his limbs. _

_As time slowed into a funnel web of interminable inevitability - slow creeping glacier of crystallised horror and incomprehension – _how had they come to this, how could they fall so very far?_ - the barrel of that gun tracked him through the dark. _

'A-ha, I have you now, thief!'

_He fancied he could even see the powder ignite in the gloaming dark, down in the depths of the barrel, a fiery blinking eye that winked in promise of his demise. _

_Crouched in the shadows, the thorns of the wild roses scratching at his skin, the thick stink of fresh turned soil and fear sweat choking him, it seemed strangely apt that after all he had done, this would be how he should die._

_His heart broke before the bullet left the barrel. _

_The gun fired; a spark, a coughing roar as powder and flint met, combustion and motion, the dynamics of life and death reduced to simple physics. _

_A moment wherein everything that he had been and everything he might have been met in confluence crouched within the roses barbed embrace, the cradle of his childhood and the prison of his adolescence standing in dark and solid silhouette behind the spectre of the man with the gun. _

_Two words, a whisper masking a howl of pain, _'Father – no -'

_A shot, a shout, the sickening thud of flesh on flesh; a cry. _

_He fell, the heavy weight of another body riding him to the ground. A mouthful of dirt and the cloying scent of dying blooms had been the first indication that he still lived. He had fought then, thrashing to be free of the hands that grabbed at him, hauling him up and away. _

_Terror and a feeling of severance that was nearly physical nearly caused him to void his bowels as he stared astounded at the body on the lawn, the golden gun so close to one out-reaching hand._

'Father?'

_It felt as if his shadow had been torn from him as he was forcibly removed from the garden; he had known then that he was leaving something behind that would never be regained. He was losing himself when he could least afford to lose at all. _

'For the Gods bluidy sake boy, we 'ave t'run.'

_Remus shoved him hard in the small of the back and he stumbled and fell to his knees in the street. A sack of Gil split and the coins hailed down upon the street, some rolling into the gutter. _

_Numbly he had reached for his prize; the price he had paid and the empty shine of poor consolation, and was roughly hauled to his feet by the large Seeq with the club whose name he did not then remember. _

'Leave it; the watch are coming and we 'ave t'run.'

_Run? _

'A very merry life lived was the life of the Rogue Balthier; living off his shiny wits with smile and laugh and cheery gait. From hills to valley and sunshine to storm he danced from maiden's bed to maiden's bed leaving with their maidenhead and never shame could touch him.'

_Reality returned (or did he return to it? – no matter, the end result was the same). It was not tears which fell in saline trails from his cheek to chin but cold sweat and pain. His eyes were dry and empty. Breathing in and out a chore he doubted was worth the price. _

_He met the storyteller's mocking regard with the impunity of the defeated that cannot be brought any lower than they have already fallen. _

_Dignity was long gone; hope and despair were not worth the effort of affront. Who he used to be was no longer in evidence. Days of abuse had stripped away the once tenacious will of he who once believed that he could not be broken. _

'…..and lo, a day did come that our bonny chap, cocksure and full of lustre, feel afoul of a man with a powerful glower and swarthy manner. This man did say to our dandy chappie, 'Ho-ho yon proud and wicked rogue, think you can best me at a game of wits, do you?'

_He pursed his dry and chapped lips as he who was no one now still recognised the implicit insult inherent in the telling of this old fable. The storyteller's full red lips curved in a sly smile, gimlet eyes drinking in his pain. _

_Run, run and run again………..but once a man ran he could not run back the way he came. The past was a broken kingdom and the bridges were still burning. The only direction was forward and the future was an open road with no direction. _

_He had wanted to fly and had fallen instead. _

_The prison of mind is one to be feared; four walls do not a prison make and yet for all the truth in that statement his chains now were of the material realm. _

_He'd gained his freedom and lost his liberty; it would be ironic under other circumstances. _

_He had fought to fly and found himself entombed. He had bought his freedom with false coin and found the price owed to be all too high. _

_Still, he could not stop running; his past close on his heels. _

'Ffamran, please don't do this. I won't tell, I promise. No one need know what you have done.'

_In memory's eye he saw a moon pale face wreathed in auburn fire, green eyes too large, too wide in a pale, pale face. Anna's pleading was always doomed to fall upon deaf ears; all he could hear then was the roar of his blood in his veins and the metaphorical wind beneath his sails._

_He had not even noticed when he left her behind._

So_, he had thought at that time, _this is what it feels like to fly?_ It was as magnificent as he had always believed. Even the blood on his hands….some his own, some not, was worth it, he had thought. Soon he would be free, he had believed. _

'I have found us an airship,' _he had said aloud, _'it is small but the Judiciary and the sky patrol will not suspect it for a getaway vessel.'

_He had felt some level of pride in his accomplishments once more, now that they were free of the chaos of the dungeon, now that he could hear something other than the repetitive dull rapport of gunshots and the sinus splitting sizzle of magicks. _

_Dawn had still been hours from birth and the darkness that pressed down on their heads had seemed filled with the promise of forgotten terrors; the loneliness of man which only reared its head in the dead hours before the dawn. _

_Yet in the womb of that night he had been undaunted and unafraid. _

_Fear would come later when he came by hard lessons; nothing in life was ever free and freedom herself exacted the highest price of all. _

_That night, now enshrined in memory that would not fade, the primordial dark was striven with lights and the caterwauls of siren calls. _

_The Capital had been caught in a battle between slumbering dark and frantic motion; the Judiciary building ablaze, lighting up the hill on which the city crawled towards the stars. _

_The sulphuric glow of the Judiciary building inferno continued in its own attempts to rise higher and higher towards the farthest reaches of the night; an anticipatory rising sun ready to reign above Archades. _

_Hamish Fon Denbak (the excuse for all this), with greasy golden braids swinging in agitation, had stepped forward and caught his arm in a grip that was still strong despite the wasting of the man's muscles from long captivity. _

'You are mad, boy. Why for would you rescue me? I do not even know you and you have no cares for Landis.'

_And he had smirked, an unfamiliar expression that had felt strangely appropriate, like a mask that he had never yet worn which moulded smugly to his lips. _

_He had looked on the older man, thin from his imprisonment and shivering against the chill of his new found liberty, with an arrogance born primarily of ignorance and ill-fated triumph._

_He had thought himself the victor and had yet to taste defeat. _

'Why should I not? Why not release you from your chains as I do myself?' he had answered careless of truth or deceit.

_And the man he had used as his justification turned steady, cool eyes on him. The eyes of a warrior who had been cowed and defeated, beaten and near broken, but who had never, even in his darkest hour when his homeland fell, sold himself for the price of an escape._

'You know nothing of chains boy, but I fear soon enough you will have your fill of them.'

_Clear eyes looked disdainfully across the alley to the brutish Remus and the sylph-like Ruthy in her blood smattered leathers who worked on the locks to the aerodrome hangar doors._

'I owe you a debt, Ffamran, I don't dispute that. When you can bear no more, get word to me and I shall free you. You know not what you have surrendered yourself to; the life of a slave is no life at all.'

'I am no-one's slave.'

_Those misguided words came back to haunt him now; a broken shell not quite a man, but no more a boy. He was a broken vessel filled with naught but ghosts and broken dreams, suspended in chains of his own making. _

_It was all such a waste, even if he did think so himself. _

_Inside his cell the woman's voice continued to weave fiction into reality, until he no longer knew the difference. _

''A game of wits, you say?' our quicksilver lad did crow with laughter, looking with proud distain upon the dark shrouded stranger, 'do you not know who I am, sir, that you would challenge me to a battle of wits?' The swarthy man did not smile but in leaden voice did reply, 'Alas I know ye well, the Rogue Balthier, but you will rue the day you did not recognise me.''

_The woman with her book, and her magicks that did not comfort but merely removed the prospect of easeful death, settled back upon her stool. _

_Her leather booted toe tapped upon the flagstones as she read aloud. Her sultry contralto murmurs filled the tiny space; slow poison dripping into the void where once a soul had been bright and eager behind young eyes. _

''Know of you, sir, why should I? I am the Rogue Balthier; it is my fate and my will that all you common, lesser folk should know my name but trouble me not with your own petty callings.' Our roguish bonny lad did decry, arrogance affronted in the face of the black shrouded man's implacable form.'

_The woman re-crossed her legs, kicking her right leg over her left jauntily. All was well with her here inside the stifling heat of the torture chamber. _

'The man in black did not smile still, but instead inclined his head in understanding. 'Then let this be our game. If you can guess what I am here for and what I am called then you shall be my victor, fail and you are, like all the others, merely mortal.' said the black shrouded man from within the depths of his hood.'

_Had he been able to he would have sought to plug his ears. Her words rang hollow in his mind, or perhaps it was merely the fact that the emptiness within him echoed too loudly in time with the lilting rise and fall of her voice. _

_He had closed his eyes to escape but all that had greeted him was darkness and he was so very sick of darkness. _

_Into his encroaching despair the woman's voice seeped. All Ivalice reduced to a mocking story tale and a tiny, stone closed, windowless room. The sky he had longed for further away now than it had ever been in Archades. _

_The fragments of the boy longed for his home with every bated breath; just as he had when first confronted with the truth of his bad bargain. _

'You made yer own choices boy, yer a traitor now, yer life as good as forfeit.' _The one-eyed Remus had growled back in the flame wreathed night of memory. _

_The dagger the pirate had pressed against his throat drew a shallow line of blood, a thrill of sharp and immediate pain, but he had been still too shell-shocked by the events in the garden to react over much to his immediate dire straits. _

_His world had fallen down and his dreams of flight had crashed down with it. _

_Over and over he had returned in minds eye to the garden and the roses, even as he had witnessed, with mute regard, the pirates trap close in on him._

_The life of a slave was indeed no life at all; his dreams quashed, his hopes extinguished, all possible allies removed from reach, yet still he had not been able to drag his mind (then and now) from that one moment when the golden gun barrel had swivelled toward him._

'Father – no –'

_The bullet had obliterated the roses, and tattered petals, grey in the pre-dawn gloom, had littered the air. He saw his father sprawled insensate on the ground, hand still curled around the gun, Einar with the cosh in his hand. _

'Father?' _He had surged forward, intent on reaching his father's side; the sick gleam of blood, black in the moonless night, tracing the crown of his father's head. _

'What have you done to my father?' _He had shouted, heedless of the need to be circumspect, for that moment all grievances had been forgotten and he was a son who seen the father he worshipped laid low before his eyes. _

_What had _he_ done to his father? _

_After that (hours or minutes later he did not care to know) all was grey and quiet and empty inside him as night folded into morning and he curled on the cargo hold floor of the very same airship he had liberated mere days before. _

_The chains they had shackled him with were a barely noticeable reminder of the price of his mistakes._

_A question kept cycling through his mind, over and over with dire repetition: What was left now? What was to become of him? _

''Guess your name and what you are here for? What foolishness is this?' Our gallant rogue had declared, 'I am no fool, sir, and well I know that no man can know the making of another, lest he become him. So I refuse your game, good sir, and wish you fare-de-well.''

_The woman's voice rose and fell in dulcet tones, lapping like the tides at the edges of his mind. He drifted, hanging from his chains, between the here and now, the recent past, and the world of make believe. _

'But as our clever rogue did make moves to leave the black swathed man did step before him, moving like shadow itself. 'You cannot refuse me, for I am the one thing you cannot escape. Tell me who I am.' The black swathed man demanded and for the first time did our handsome rogue, our delightful miscreant, know what it was to be afraid.'

'……enough…..' _he had whispered, finding his voice after so long without it, _'I have no will to listen. Leave me be.'

_Defiance he still had though he did not know why he bothered. The woman paid him no heed as she flipped over the page. He closed his eyes and tried to block out her words. _

_Memory swam behind his closed eyelids. _

'Yer ours now, boy, an' Nylous 'as a special way o' makin' a new recruit feel at 'ome.'

_Half frozen from his stay in the cargo hold he had been stiff and groggy-headed when Remus had finally landed the craft (beautiful Strahl) and dragged him out into the light of day._

'If yer survive I might 'ave some work for a mind like yers, but I reckon yer'll break right quick. There's like t'be nowt to yer but bluster fer all that yer think yer clever.'

_He had barely heard the man's insults as he looked about him at a new Ivalice, so very far from Archades, that he had once longed to see, with the bland indifference of encroaching shock. _

_He wanted to go home but he did not have one anymore. _

_Still the wrench of grief he had felt was palpable and fierce as he watched, mute and pliant, bound in chains, as Ruthy took the controls of the Strahl (the ship that was to be his dream's fruition) and disappeared into the wispy clouds above this foreign town so very far from his home. _

'C'mon wit' yer, boy, yer'll not escape yer bargain by playin' dumb. Yer made yer bed an' yer'll lie in it, Nylous will see t'it. Mark me words.'

_He had never set foot in Rozzaria before (as an Archadian son he also had never imagined he would have any business doing so, either) and he was not so broken then that he did not take the time to observe the glass domed tower of the fortress of Veridree rising up in the grey light of day. _

_He would not soon forget (he cannot forget; all else is tatters except his ignoble defeat) that he had been startled almost out of his dazed and broken stupor to see a man as monstrously fat as the infamous pirate king, Nylous. _

_On first sight, and if he had been asked, he would barely have called the man Hume he was so disgustingly rotund. _

_Squeezed into a vaulted chair of gilt and filigreed gold, mounded with purple cushions, the pirate king had watched his approach (in chains, led like a leashed hound through the throng of black clad Rozzarians by Remus) with beady eyes as he shovelled figs into his puckered mouth. _

'Our bonny laddie, our cheery rake, did hesitate in his fright, his means of escape lost. 'I do not care to know who you are sir.' Our Balthier persisted, fear heavy on his silvered tongue.'

_Ruthy's voice (who it was she, he could pretend ignorance any longer) jarred him from memory. He tried to ignore her but found he could not. _

'Alas, for all our Balthier's bluster the swarthy man in black would not be moved, 'I care not, for I am not to be diverted, avoided, nor eluded by thee. Tell me who I be and why for I am come to thee.'

_Back in time he faded once more to that moment in the fortress audience chamber, the thin sunlight falling through the planes of the glass dome. He had not wanted to go forward and he had resisted with what little strength he had left, when forced by Remus down onto his bloodied knees before the pirate kings throne. _

_He had wanted to run then but there was no way back. What was done was done and could not be undone. _

'So this is the Archadian brat you spoke of, Remus?' _the pirate kings Rozzarian accent was almost incomprehensible to his ears which had been raised on the hard, refined, diction of his Archadian mother tongue. _

_Nylous' tiny head, adrift like the head of pin pushed into an overstuffed pin-cushion, wobbled and tilted forward as the gelatinous bulk moved forward in his throne to peer downward._

'I am Nylous, boy, and you are mine by rights of pirate acquisition.' _The man had giggled obscenely; a ridiculously feminine sound emerging in staccato bursts to set his jowls to wobbling. _

'I shall remake you, Archadian. I shall tear you down to nothing and when you beg for mercy I shall laugh before I build you anew. We shall make a pirate out of you, boy, and your own mother will not know you. Ha, when I am done you will sooner shoot your mother than betray me!'

_The audience chamber had erupted in false mirth, each man laughing harder than the other to prove his loyalty. As he was dragged from the chamber he had noted the faces of the men nearest the throne and those that jeered the loudest, he made a vow that he would not soon forget their faces either. _

_Dragged into the bowels of the fortress he was cast down, down, into the darkened pit he where he now resided; wherein those who would own his body and his mind still sought to strip his will from him one piece of flesh at a time. _

_He had been flung down days ago ( days at least, maybe longer, though time had no meaning here), yet all they had managed to claim from him was dead flesh and spilt blood. _

_There was a fine line between surrender and despair; he had fallen to the one but not the other. Somewhere within in him he was waiting; waiting for the moment when he really would be free. _

_Ruthy was still talking; the story winding down to its seemingly inevitable conclusion, one he had no desire to hear. _

'The Rogue Balthier did quake within his fine, tall boots, when speaketh did the man in black. Clever was our wicked rogue and knew well, now, who it was had come for him. 'I will not speak it, nor accept it, you are here too soon and I'll not acknowledge you.' He argued, desperate for reprieve.'

_Ruthy, his tormenter, looked up at him with a gleam within her eyes. She smiled darkly, the book near its end, held open in her palms. She continued to read. _

'The man in black did then, and with sudden dark mirth, thrown back his head and laugh. 'You think that I care for your acquiescence, rogue? You played your hand and played it poorly, chances you have squandered, your time is nigh so I ask you, what is my name?'

_Listening to her gratingly sultry voice, insidious as the rattle of a serpent's tail, he gritted his teeth. She had named him Balthier, but unlike his name sake he would not be cowed by fate and poor chance. _

'Alive with fright all through his bones, our dashing rogue knew himself lost, his sins come home to roost, his days a-done. In leaden voice our clever boy did answer, 'You are that which comes to all men. You are the leveller and the bane of all. You are death and you are here for me.'

_The book snapped shut with crisp finality despite the fact (he noted keenly) that there seemed to be a number of pages left unread._

_Ruthy looked at him and smiled expectantly. _'Thus ends the cautionary tale of the Rogue Balthier who lived a life of reckless sin to moulder in an early grave.' _She chuckled lazily rising from the stool and tossing the book down on the flagstones negligently. _

_Stepping up to him she slid a hand down his sweat and blood slicked bare chest, _'You didn't really think you could win, did you, my cheery boy_? _What a pity it all came to this, we could have had such fun together.'

'……..I sincerely doubt that….' _He breathed painfully and Ruthy merely laughed picking up the one, small, lantern that had allowed her to read to him. As she walked out of the door she waved a hand for the man with the whip, his very own silent spectre of death, to continue his 'work'. _

'Try not to damage the merchandise too greatly, Alzier Al-Vizera, he's no good to us a mindless cripple.' _She laughed as she departed. _

_The door to the cell closed and the darkness was all the more complete now that the faint illumination of the lamp had escaped the room with Ruthy. _

_He waited, the only sound his rasping breathing, braced for the inevitable. However, in the last seconds, as the whistle of the whip shrieked through the air, he looked to the spot in the darkness where the book waited, hidden in shadow._

_A strange conviction caught hold within him. This was not the end of the story he was sure; this was not the end of the Rogue Balthier. _

_The whip came down but he did not scream. Instead he kept his eyes rooted to the darkness where the answers lay waiting._

_This was not the end of the Rogue Balthier. _


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Rozzarian Caper Pt 1: Never too good for a petty revenge

_A/N: This story is coming to its conclusion and I suddenly realised that I've never written a scene where Balthier and Fran actually perpetrate a heist! So I decided to rectify that right now._

_Get your swashes and your buckles out people; it's time for some proper pirate like behaviours! ;)_

* * *

He gathered two handfuls of the thick, silky mass of Fran's hair and marvelled at how surprisingly heavy it was (he had always imagined her hair to be as fine and insubstantial as the cobweb it so resembled). With distinct lack of artfulness he attempted to shove the gently curling mass up atop her head between her ears, inexpertly pinning the tumbling tresses with a collection hair grips and combs.

It came as no surprise to either of them, when, for the umpteenth time, her hair slipped free of the pins before he could start wrapping the bolt of sunset orange cloth around her head in a makeshift turban.

With a long suffering sigh Balthier unravelled the cloth and gathered up her thick mane in both hands again (secretly enjoying the feel of her hair running through his fingers as he did so).

'I am unsure why you insist on such an action, Balthier.'

Fran said coolly as she sat demurely on the edge of the bed in their innocuous lodging rooms with her back to him while he knelt on the bed behind her (his balance was precarious but she was too tall for any other position to work) fighting a losing battle with her hair.

'Hmm, yes, Fran, so you have said.'

He replied distractedly contemplating the likelihood that Fran would allow him to wrap her hair around her ears, thus forming a support structure with each to hold her hair up. He decided that the chances of that were similar in odds to King Raminas of Dalmasca returning from the dead as the new leader of the Archadian Senate.

'Have you not yet satiated your thirst for adventure, that you must seek new ways to avail yourself of an untimely demise?'

'Oh, this has nothing to do with a thirst for adventure Fran, though I admit, my thirst for that remains insatiable. This little venture tonight has far more to do with revenge.'

Fran sighed, he felt her hair quiver as her shoulders lifted and fell in graceful surrender to his unerring ability to throw himself (and by extension Fran as well) into danger without the need for any provocation.

Of course considering how blasted long it had taken to finally fight off the Mist sickness, regain his strength and return to the business of criminality, Fran could not really blame him for being a tad bored with the simple life.

Their usual trade in counterfeiting and smuggling was all well and good (not to mention lucrative) but it was hardly particularly glamorous; nor was it the sort of thing that would see 

the bounty rise on his head by twice the rate of Archadian inflation _and_, of course, he had a reputation to uphold.

'Revenge is a petty thing, Balthier. Is not the leading man above such things?'

By the slight tone of resignation in her voice he could tell that she already knew that her argument was doomed to failure.

He smirked behind her back as he finally found the right method to affix her hair to the top of her head and began tightly wrapping the cloth about her head.

'Whatever gave you that idea Fran?' he queried amused, 'I would think you'd know by now that I am never too good for a spot of well deserved vengeance. Einar will rue the day he absconded with _my_ partner.'

Fran sighed again, 'Was it not enough for you to leave him adrift amid a mob of angry headhunters, Balthier? Must you risk increasing the ferocity of the enmity between you by goading him further?'

Carefully Balthier clambered off the bed and stepped before Fran to survey his hairdressing work. He rested his hands on hips while he considered the overall aesthetic.

'I don't intend to goad him into further enmity. I intend to ensure that he will never be able to hurt you, and inconvenience me, ever again.'

Once Balthier had brushed up the last wispy tendril of her hair from her cheek and tucked it under the folds of her turban he studied her critically for any flaws in the disguise. He soon discovered that there were none. As always Fran was flawless.

'Einar did me no permanent damage, Balthier. Do not use me as justification for your spite.'

Fran's incredulously drawn up white brows were all the more sharply defined without the wisps of hair to distract the eye; her almond eyes all the more beautiful and her oval face and unusual features less obviously _non-hume_ with her ears and hair hidden under the headdress.

'Very well Fran, I will use my spite as justification for my spite.' He grinned as his eyes dropped to sweep slowly over Fran's body, swathed in flowing robes of the same orange hue as her head wrappings.

Her cinnamon skin seemed of darker shade against the brilliant orange cloth and he congratulated himself on the disguise. She looked almost exactly like the Rozzarian desert women of the nomadic Mikanel dunes. No one only seeing her dressed in this way would mark her as Viera. Tonight such anonymity was paramount.

Though Fran said not one word Balthier knew her well enough to know she was unhappy. He sighed, pulling at the sleeve of his white shirt impatiently.

'Fran the ends may not be to your likely but you cannot doubt that the object of our enterprise is a deserving one; Farouk Kharna is one of the most prolific and infamous dealers in the flesh trade throughout Ivalice. How can setting free a group of innocent women forced into prostitution be wrong, hmm?'

Fran gave him a very hard, level, look as she rose gracefully from the bed, seeming all the more stately and impressive now that her sinewy body was hidden under floor brushing robes.

'It would assure me of your good intent more if I knew that you did this for the sake of assisting those in need and not for some convoluted and self-serving purpose.' She chided him.

Unabashed (and taking the time to study his reflection critically in the full length mirror) Balthier smiled, 'I am a _Pirate_, Fran, remember? There is no profit in altruism for altruism's sake. The art of the thing is to do a good deed _and_ make a profit, which is what tonight is all about.'

He turned from the mirror (making final adjustment to the high fanned collar of his stiff white shirt and brushing his hands down the front of the silver and black stitched vest) then he bowed to Fran to precede him out of the room.

'I am to presume that the prospect of assuming the guise of saviour to numerous scant attired women does not factor into your reasoning at all, Balthier?'

Fran challenged him without looking back at him, her words floating up the stairs as she descended easily ahead of him, even taking into account the fall of her robes at her feet. He chuckled in response.

'I am aggrieved Fran, that you would ever think that I would so much as look at another woman while in your company. I am perpetually dazzled by your beauty alone.' He purred flippantly eager to see how she would respond.

Fran stopped on the stairs and turned her head to cast a quizzical look up at him. 'You have been increasing your repertoire, I see. You have not used that line before.'

Feeling extremely whimsical he chuckled again, 'Yes, I'm rather proud of that one, what think you?'

Fran shook her head indulgently and continued down the rickety staircase and he followed on her heels, unable to keep the smile from playing at his lips. He had not felt so light hearted and high-spirited since before the fall of Nabudis (and it seemed inconceivable to him that some ten months already had passed since that fateful night when Ivalice's borders shifted so dramatically).

'I think that you are in the mood for trouble and the gods will smile on us indeed if we survive this night intact.' Fran told him dourly, which only made him grin all the more.

'Be that way if you wish Fran, but I know that you thrill to nights like this as much as I.' He challenged as he slipped past her, at the bottom of the stairs, to deftly open the front door of the partially dilapidated but non-descript and circumspect rented accommodation they were lodging in, before Fran could reach for the door handle.

As always he bowed to her as he opened the door and as always she completely ignored the gesture as she preceded him out into the balmy Rozzarian night.

They both paused for a moment to savour the sweetness of the purple dusk. The humidity was not so terrible this night and the dying heat of the day left the early evening air warm and comfortable, not even the tiny, biting insects that buzzed in clouds above the street could detract from the perfection of the night.

Out of the corner of his eye Balthier observed Fran turn her head minutely and knew that she was trying to listen to the night even with her ears smothered by her mounded hair and muffled by the headdress.

Before them lay the wide, dusty and unpaved road which formed the main thoroughfare up to the golden domed palace of Farouk Kharna (a distant cousin of the noble family Margrace and for that reason almost untouchable by the beleaguered local authorities) and the town of Vishini that had sprouted up around the ancient palace.

As they ambled in no particular hurry along the palm tree lined avenue, the scent of dry dust and wild flowers permeating the air and the gentle rustle of palm leaves serenading them both, Balthier could feel the wings of his soul unfurling.

He could barely wait for their night to begin.

As they approached the palace walls Fran slowed her step and allowed him to walk on ahead before she drifted away into the small throng of similarly dressed women and some men who were milling about the dust clogged open market nestled against the large and imposing walls of the palace.

Balthier, knowing he stood out like a sore thumb amid the gathering of Rozzarian peasants and nomads, walked proudly and with head held high, revelling in his fine clothing and obvious conspicuousness.

Balthier knew that in his silver and black finery he looked exactly like the sort of well-to-do young aristocrat with more Gil than good sense that frequented Farouk Kharna's licentious soirees.

As he approached the large gate, guarded my two Rozzarian men in the dark red livery of the Kharna household, Balthier languidly blandished the formal invitation card in one hand and made a show of impatiently tapping his foot while the two guards pored over it.

The invitation was a forgery, but he had enough accumulated skin in forging documents that he did not doubt for a moment that the two rough looking men with the their dark greasy hair and unkempt beards would take it for authentic.

Eventually, after the mandatory intimidating glowers and muttered curses in their own plebeian tongue (Balthier would never have very great tolerance for Rozzarians or their thick as honey and detested mother tongue) the two degenerate oafs at the gate ushered him through.

The inner courtyard of the palace was all Balthier could have hoped it would be. Open to the air the courtyard was paved in pink veined marble and blue and alabaster tiles.

Heated bathing pools lined the mosaic walkway towards the entrance to the ancient palace and nubile young women in diaphanous bathing robes put on a passable pretence of joyous 

frolicking for the lusting men gathered on marble benches and thickly upholstered chez longue that had been arranged around the pools.

Hookai's and large communal smoking pipes fashioned to resemble lotus flowers sprouted from ground and many men and their female companions for the night lounged about them in varied states of inebriated stupor.

A wizened old man with a long stringy white beard and the wrinkled dark skin of a walnut, coaxed a whining, wheedling, tune out of some manner of wind instrument that Balthier did not know the name of.

So far so very cliché, Balthier mused ironically as he sauntered past the pools and the smoking pipes, affecting the mien of a man with a purpose and the confidence to be in no particular hurry to fulfil it.

As he strolled up the walkway towards the enormous gold embossed front doors of the establishment he could feel the physical weight of numerous eyes on him.

Balthier kept his smile on the inside and ignored the decadent flashes of bare female flesh and the scintillating twinkle of semi-precious stones that sparked from the friezes that covered the walls of the courtyard.

Just as he approached the doors (and was wondering how one went about opening such massive, undoubtedly heavy gates) a woman detached herself from a small cluster of dark-eyed, voluptuous beauties adorned in gold jewellery and bright coloured diaphanous gauze and came towards him.

Balthier stopped to await her approach keenly noting her burnished bronzed skin, dark painted doe eyes and thick wavy dark hair that fell past her waist to brush the low hanging waist line of her pink pantaloons. Biting his lip against an amused and avaricious smile Balthier could not help but notice that a fat, perfectly rounded ruby winked within the recess of her naval.

'Greetings good sir, have you come to partake of our revels?'

The woman, who up close Balthier saw was no older than he, asked him in broken standard Ivalic tongue her eyes demurely down cast, in the submissive pose Rozzarian's favoured in their women.

Although Balthier usually preferred to be a little more subtle in his seductions (he had found that women tended to react better to a man who did not, on first acquaintance, appear to be interested than in one who could not keep his hands to himself) he nevertheless decided that under the presence circumstances the direct approach would be better.

Balthier slipped a finger under the young woman's chin and tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. He favoured the glassy-eyed woman (no doubt dull-witted from the thick miasma of the smoking weed permeating the air) with the soft, distant but indulgent smile he had patented for dealing with potential dalliances.

'Greetings to you as well sweetheart, but alas I'm afraid I am here on business, though if you would be so kind as to direct me to Shar Farouk I would be greatly appreciative.' He let his 

free hand idly brush the heavy Gil pouch strung to his belt seemingly by accident and saw the woman's eyes latch onto the movement.

'You are 'ere to see de Shar?' With deft practice the woman moulded herself against him and immediately he was enveloped in the heady scent of the oils and perfume her body was awash with.

'My name is Milla. I would be honour to be showing you to de Shar.' She demurred letting her fingers patter over the embroidered whorls and swirls of his vest. She tilted her head up towards him and opened her lips invitingly.

Balthier merely waited smiling faintly and curious to see what this woman would do next. Her hand, he noticed was creeping, in the guise of a seduction towards his (seemingly) unprotected Gil purse with the subtly of an experienced pick-pocket.

Balthier was not unaccustomed to the ways of painted ladies such as this one, though he never himself indulged in their services (why pay for something he could get for free; but more than that he had nothing but contempt for the men who used women in such ways and would not debase himself or any woman by following suit) and was well away that to lower ones guard around such a woman as this Milla was stupidity itself.

Milla rose on tip-toes to press her lips to his. Under her kiss Balthier remained politely impassive neither pulling away nor reciprocating. Instead he waited to see when Milla would make her move.

Despite his distaste for the profession (one of his few twinges of morality that had survived his piracy) Balthier had many an acquaintance and business associate among the working girls of Ivalice; there were few better sources of information when it came to finding a mark for a heist.

What a man would not tell his wife he would likely tell his whore was not merely a colourful idiom but a proven fact and most of the girls he knew would happily impart sensitive information to him in return for a finder's fee.

Milla was not deterred by his lack of response and pushed her leg between his, wriggling to force an opening, as she nipped and nibbled at his bottom lip, all the while her right hand petted his hip within touching distance of his Gil purse.

Balthier caught her right wrist in a firm grip that remained just the good side of painful and purred coolly against her lips, 'Your technique needs some work, Milla, sweetheart. Now, be a dear and take me to the Shar and we shall pretend this never happened, hmm?'

Milla drew back and fear danced in her smoky eyes. Whereas it was generally accepted that any man who lay with a working girl was likely to risk being robbed blind come morning and thus the chance was largely written off as the price one paid for pleasure, Milla was likely to be severely punished for being caught in the act.

'My lord I sorry, so sorry, it no happen again...'

Balthier pressed a finger to her lips to stop her babbling, 'Hush. I have said it is forgotten, now please if you would be so kind as to take me to Shar Farouk without delay?' he arched 

his brows inquiringly, wondering if it would not be better to try his luck with one of the other women. Relief flooded through the woman's trembling body and she nodded vigorously.

'Yes, yes, I take you to de Shar. You come wit' me.'

Balthier smiled pleasantly and gave the flustered woman a courtly half bow before following her to the door, whereby she pulled an embroidered cord by the doors. The faint chimes of bells from behind the closed doors could be heard a moment before the double doors began to open, laboriously, to allow them both entry to the palace interior.

The inside of the palace had been renovated for lasciviousness in much the same way the outer courtyard had. Thick silk and velvet draperies in eye-aching shades of red, purple and pink fluttered in swathes from the ceiling and walls, twining white marble pillars and pooling against the cool tiled floor.

A curtained and drape strewn doorway, plush with purple and red velvet gave Balthier the impression of walking through a pouting woman's lips to enter the main floor. He was thusly caught, as he emerged into the main ground floor, between the paradoxical urge to shudder in distaste and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

The central area was recessed so that one had to descend the three steps down towards an array of tables, settees chez longue and assorted cushions and daybeds that clustered about the main floor all more or less facing the stage area at the back of the room.

Twinkling red and purple tinted crystal light chandeliers hung from the ceiling casting fleshy shadows across the floor, richly draped in pink and red carpeting thick enough to sink in as Balthier followed Milla across the floor toward the table near the currently empty stage where a bald man with ebony skin sat smoking a pipe and was (of all the possible clichés in this decadently ridiculous place) _counting his Gil _as around him men and women rolled about the floor and the furniture like Hume Ororboro's.

If that was how the audience carried on, Balthier thought dryly, he sincerely hoped he would be gone before the stage show began.

Milla stopped short a few feet from the table where the man (and Balthier recognised him as Farouk Kharna) sat. She turned to him with eyes still alight with nervousness.

'Ere you are, I take you no further for I not allowed to speak wit' de Shar.' Milla explained eyes downcast once more.

Balthier nodded as he deftly caught the woman's wrist before she could scurry off. With consummate professionalism Balthier raised her wrist to his lips and kissed her flesh chastely over the pulse point, all the while keeping an eye on Kharna through his eyelashes as he turned his head down towards Milla.

With his free hand he flipped open the Gil purse and tickled out a scattering of the higher denomination coins. 'Thank you, Milla, for your kindness.'

Balthier pressed the coins into her hand. Milla's eyes widened as she quickly calculated the generous amount he had bestowed on her. He waited for her to raise her eyes to his partly with gratitude but also suspicion.

'You 'ave some other service I do for you?' she questioned shrewdly, she had no doubt been in the game long enough to know that a patron would never hand over two hundred and fifty Gil simply because she had opened a door for him.

Balthier smiled slyly and flipped the other two Gil coins (the same amount again as he had just paid her) he had pulled from his pouch through his fingers, holding his hand up to the light (he did not have to worry about such a conspicuous action; a patron and a woman dickering over price in such a manner would hardly be out of place here).

'Perhaps, sweetheart; tell me, would you be amenable to making another two hundred and fifty Gil?'

'Two 'undert an' tifty?' Milla whispered then she looked at him sharply, fist tightening on the Gil she held there, 'An' I get t' keep de Gil you give me already?'

'Yes.' Balthier smiled, 'All I require from you is that you let my associate into the palace. She should be waiting by the servants' entrance. Would you be so kind? Oh, and of course, your fee should cover your silence as well.'

Milla nodded her head in agreement, 'Dis woman, what she look like?'

Balthier cocked his head to the side, pleased. 'She is dressed in orange and of above average stature. I assure you, you shall not miss her. Once you have granted entry to my associate come back to me and I will give you your Gil.' He paused thoughtfully, 'and if I were you, sweetheart, I would not provide any further 'services' tonight. In fact you may want to be elsewhere entirely for the rest of the night.'

Balthier gave Milla a hard look, to ensure she understood what he was telling her.

The woman bobbed her head in brief understanding and swiftly turned away towards a side door in the wall hidden under more of the velvet drapery.

After watching Milla disappear from view Balthier pocketed the Gil once more checked his cuffs and strolled nonchalantly over to the table where Farouk Kharna had been watching him all along.

Balthier stopped before the table and afforded the middle aged, powerfully built dark-skinned man with the shiny bald head and yellowed, greedy eyes, a bland smirk.

'Shar Farouk Kharna? My name is Balthier; Einar has sent me to discuss a matter of business with you.'

The slave trader looked up from his Gil piles with a suspicious frown as Balthier dropped gracefully into the chair opposite him and languidly stretched his legs under the table and ankles crossed, and folded his hands comfortable over his vest.

'Einar you say, what business does he dat slimy Seeq 'ave wit' me?' Farouk asked dismissively. He was suspicious but complacent confident that his contingent of paid thugs and the power of his distant relations would keep him from harm.

Balthier smiled broadly, an almost feral flash of teeth. His blood was almost dancing with anticipation; he could taste the success of the heist on his tongue. He savoured the cadence of his next words, like the finest of wines.

'Robbery, my good sir, I'm here to rob you blind.'

* * *

_A/N: ...next Balthier chapter will feature explosions, more Balthier being suavely devious, and Fran kicking ass!_


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-three: Balthier's beginning Pt2: A pocket full of Moogle on the long walk to Balfonheim

_A/N: I've never done it before in this fic, but in this chapter I'm breaking the tradition of a flowing narrative by using page breaks to denote changes of scene and the passage of time (it's lazy sure, but it's convenient) ;)_

_P.S: I apologise for the weird boxes and broken sentences that appeared in the last chapter. I have no idea why that happened except that I wrote the chapter on a different PC with different software and that seems to have skewed the formatting. Hopefully this one won't have that problem._

* * *

_He was by no means sure how many days had passed since Nylous and his cronies had eventually concluded that whipping him to bloody shreds availed them not at all. A dead Archadian or a crippled one was of no use to man or beast._

_Thus having done no more to facilitate his own salvation than stubbornly refuse to die of pain (which, in retrospect was no small thing) he found himself hauled up from the depths of Nylous' dungeon and presented, filthy, half-naked, emaciated, blinded by the sunlight and partial insensible from dehydration before the pirate king once more. _

'Can you 'ear me boy?'

_He nodded his head, he could hear the man but responding and formulating words was beyond him; as if sensing this Nylous snapped his fingers and one of the faceless black liveried Rozzarians came forward with a sheepskin flask of water. _

_He lapped at the flask that the Rozzarian held like a babe suckling at his mother's teat (or so Nylous jeered and was ignored as thirst took precedence to pride at the current time) still the Rozzarian drew the flask away before he felt himself satiated, the sweet clean taste of the water doing little more than exacerbating his thirst. _

'Now Ruthy tell me dat you hail by de name Balthier, dough you birt' name be quite diff'rent, eh?'

_Nylous' fatty jowls wobbled in appreciation for his own less than stellar wit. _

'What'sa matter boy, couerl got you tongue? Speak up now. I ear you have a sharp tongue, Archadian, I hope my hospitality has not dulled it.' _Nylous' full lips pulled back from yellowed, irregularly shaped teeth. _

'….I…didn't realise I was…ex-expected to offer response…' it hurt to talk as it hurt to keep himself kneeling upright at the man's feet.

_His back was a sticky, oozing mass of open wounds filmed over by a thin patina of scabby tissue. In the Rozzarian midday heat a trapped fly buzzed about his back, attracted by the gourmet banquet of salty blood and sweat. _

_It was an effort of mind over matter to resist twitching his shoulders and tearing open the wounds when the fly alighted on his skin. _

_Nylous studied him shrewdly, _'I 'ear tell you be clever, _Balthier. _Remus, himself, has requested that I grant you t'his crew once I am satisfied that you be properly broken in,' _a twisted smile danced over his flabby, flaccid features, _'why you 't'ink he would do that?'

_The smile fell away in an instant and Nylous's hard, beady eyes peered at him keenly._

_The newly created Balthier (and why should he not claim the name; it was not as though another alias was readily available to him) resisted the instinct to shrug as that would not do his back any good at all. He swallowed painfully and then spoke, having no foresight as to what he intended to say before he said it._

'I would guess it had something to do with my charismatic personality and sparkling wit.'

_He demurred sardonically, and seeing that the dry statement had completely passed Nylous by he sighed and tried again._

'If I was to make an educated guess I would say he might want my services because _I am_ a clever bastard and he has sense enough to know that he is a brutish moron without the wits to do more than inflict senseless violence as a means to acquiring his own ends.'

_This was the assessment of Remus' character he had made during their short acquaintance; a man who was a far cry from idiotic but who was neither possessed of, nor inclined to cultivate, any higher intelligence._

_Nylous narrowed his pouched beady eyes, _'what more would he want to do? Why does he need an arrogant pup like you?'

_Abruptly and without warning Nylous' huge meaty paw shot out and palmed he who was now Balthier's head. _

_Using only that one, enormous fleshy, hand, Nylous pushed Balthier's head back painfully, bending his neck at an agonising and unnatural angle. _

'Tell me what Remus is planning or I'll snap your puny neck, eh.'

_Nylous exerted slow and judicious force on his head, pushing it back, further and further until the newly made Balthier was forced to contort his entire body to avoid permanent spinal injury. _

_The panicked rise and fall of his bobbing adams apple felt as though it would shear right through the stretched taut flesh of his throat. A sharp crackling pain pooled at the base of his skull where it fused with his spine. His whip scars opened as he contorted his back and bowed his spine to accommodate the unnatural angle of his head._

_Mind working at feverish lightening speed he who was now Balthier, as he had no one else to be, raced through his options as Nylous continued to push his head down below his shoulder blades. _

_His options boiled down to three possibilities; first among those was that he did nothing and Nylous snapped his neck, this was, obviously, not the preferred option; thus leaving options two and three open to use. _

_The first of the two remaining options involved being profoundly honest and admitting that he could not imagine what Remus might be planning (if in fact the sustained process of thought necessary to 'plan' was applicable to Remus' cognitive function) and the second option was to lie through his teeth and hope for the best. _

'I have no idea what he is planning.' _He gritted out, deciding that he would attempt honesty as the safer option, _'Why would he tell me? I barely know him and our brief acquaintance was hardly a convivial one.'

_He who was now Balthier hissed in strangled pain as the pressure being exerted on his neck and head increased and he was forced to contort his body painfully to avoid his breaking his spine. _

_Evidently whomsoever it was who had coined the phrase 'honesty is the best policy' had never been in the company of a psychotic pirate king. _

_It was time to abandon honesty and lie through his bloody teeth, _'More,' _he croaked desperately clawing that the man's hand on his head, _'He wants more. Remus is dissatisfied with his piracy and wants to extend his reach.'

_As bare faced lies went it was, at least, plausible. Criminals were an avaricious lot, weren't they? It was entirely probable that 'wanting more' and 'wishing to extend ones reach' were common desires among pirates. _

_Nylous certainly seemed to think so as he abruptly let go of he who was becoming Balthier's head; the release so sudden that his head snapped back to the correct elevation and position with whip-lash inducing speed. He almost broke both arms as he fell forward heavily and his arms instinctively came out to brace his fall. _

_Nylous surged upward in a tumultuous tower of jiggling flesh and blubber rolls, barely contained underneath a stretched purple satin suit. To the new minted Balthier's astonishment the man threw back his head and released a furious bellow more commonly associated with rampaging beasts than men. _

_Stunned the new Balthier could only watch, along with everyone else in the audience chamber, as the pirate king's face mottled purple and diffused with rage. _

_Balthier, resisting the urge to cover his head with his arms and cower in (justified) fear, held himself very still and kept his eyes downcast, hoping that the man's wrath would seek another target._

_It did._

_What precisely the non-descript black liveried Rozzarian man did (if in fact he did anything at all) to attract Nylous fury upon himself, he who was now Balthier did not know and suspected it did not particularly matter._

_Cursing in Rozzarian Nylous launched himself (with surprising speed considering his girth) at the man and began to bludgeon him to the turquoise mosaic tiled floor with his huge meaty fists. _

_He who was now Balthier kept his eyes downcast and remained very still, even as fresh blood began to trickle over broken scabs on his back and the fly buzzed opportunistically around his wounds. _

_He, like everyone else in the room, waited for Nylous to excise his rage on the other man. _

_Eventually, panting and sweating profusely, Nylous finally seemed marginally less homicidal and he returned to wedge himself into his ridiculous throne, displacing a collection of gold tasselled cushions as he did so. _

_Nylous turned his small, beady, bloodshot eyes on he who was now Balthier, blood- stained hands gripping the arms of his throne so tightly his knuckles glowed white and bloodless._

'You will not 'elp Remus, boy; I own you. You are my property and if I 'ear that you have betrayed me I'll skin you alive and make moccasins out'o your flesh.'

_Deliberately and forcibly he who was becoming Balthier (whatever that entailed) ignored any prolonged reflection on the rather graphic threat and inside responded to the command._

'Why would I help Remus? The man gave me to you to be arbitrarily abused and misused. What possible reason could I have to wish to assist him in lining his pockets with Gil?'

_It was a sincere question; however there _was_ an answer and a reason, but, Balthier hoped, one only known to himself. _

_In the endless ignominy of his incarceration, once Ruthy had grown bored of tormenting him and his torture had been halted due to lack of obvious affect, he had found himself fixating more and more on that beautiful airship he had first seen in a dream. _

_The Strahl; his Strahl. _

_The Strahl had become a beacon of hope that had kept him sane in that dark, windowless cell. Reclaiming what was rightfully (at least by his reckoning) his had become the only goal he now lived for. _

_Remus had the Strahl, therefore, as distasteful as it was, he needed to find a means to find Remus and do whatever it would take to gain possession (not to mention the means to fly) his beautiful airship and thus attain the culmination of his dreams of freedom. _

_He had come too far to give in now; there was no way back, only forwards and onwards, even if the road he must tread was not one he had ever thought he would choose. _

_Nylous seemed to be engrossed in his own twisted version of deep thought. It looked somewhat painful, but at least it was only painful to the pirate king and, for once, no one else was forced to suffer (chiefly Balthier himself). _

_As an idea for a possible escape from his current captivity came to him, he who was fast becoming Balthier, considered how best to enact the plan. _

'You are mine.' _Nylous groused, suddenly, looking at him. _'You live an' die on my say so. You work for me. You work to protect me just as all my people do. Fail me an' you die.'

_He who was Balthier now and evermore did not argue. He belonged to no one save himself but was not fool enough to argue the point with a man who thought nothing of beating a man half to death with his bare hands. _

_Instead he waited, biding his time while Nylous worked laboriously through his own tortuous thought processes._

'I suspected for a long time that Remus be a treacherous snake, but he is strong an' powerful, 'e 'olds Balfonheim for me. I cannot move against him wit'out proof.' _Nylous mused._

_A spark of pure triumph flared to life within Balthier's breast. Excitement and the desperate possibility of a means of escape kindled within him and quickened his pulse. He did his best to resist showing any of his inner jubilation as he cautiously spoke up._

'If I belong to you, could you not send me to find your proof? If you are right then I am needed for Remus' plans, after all. I could act on your stead to scupper his plans while seemingly aiding him?'

_He was careful to pitch this idea as a suggestion and one that could be easily accredited, and assumed, as Nylous own, and all the while kept his eyes downcast as he did so. There was a moments drawn out, tense, silence before Nylous spoke._

'How do I know you not play me and Remus off each other, eh? What do you get out o' this?'

_The shrewd question came as something of surprise to he who was now Balthier (he hadn't thought Nylous capable of such dexterity of thought) but he was ready for it, nevertheless._

'I wish to learn to fly an airship.' _He admitted truthfully, while still keeping his eyes downcast. _'As to my loyalty, well, I am not in a position of strength in this negotiation. I am loyal to whoever does _not_ skin me alive and use me to cobble their shoes.'

_It was a gamble taking this tact, but he could not pretend to have a great loyalty and admiration for the man on whose orders his back had been torn to shreds. Thus he decided to fall back on a self-serving truth. He would do whatever he had to do so that he was never a helpless captive again. _

_To his surprise that same insidious, oddly sibilant, and peculiarly feminine giggling laugh wriggled from between Nylous' lips. _

_Reaching forward the pirate king deliberately, and with casual sadism, pounded he who was now Balthier on the back, breaking open his wounds once again._

'You learn our ways quick, boy. Fear is the only currency of loyalty that exists among pirates an' you clever to fear me.' _Nylous scratched under his numerous double chins thoughtfully. _

_Finally the pirate king nodded. _'I will send you t'Remus. Let 'im train you, an all the while he not know he trainin' his own enemy, for I think you 'ate him well. 'E will think he use you, clever Archadian brat, but all the while you, wait, like the serpent; his killer.' _Sickening titters of laughter erupted from Nylous' lips once more as he nodded again, greedily. _

'You will spy on 'im. Tell me what he does an' to who. Tell me where he goes an' why. You do dis an' remember who you master is an' no harm will come t'you, boy.' _A twinkle in those cruel, piggish eyes, _'Who knows, you may even end up a sky pirate.' _Nylous snorted in derisive laughter at the prospect. _

_All the while Balthier remained still, holding tight to the hidden hope that he would soon be free of this dreadful place. _

_Nylous lifted his eyes to take in the restive group of silent men in their black livery that stood to attention in the chamber. _

_The pirate king then hauled he who was now Balthier to his feet by the arm and twisted him, with the ease of one manipulating a rag-doll, to face the hostile eyes of the silent Rozzarians._

'Let it be understood. The pirate king Nylous claims this here _Balthier_ as pirate and vassal. He does my work and will not be harmed unless on my say so.'

_This announcement was met with resounding silence. He who was now Balthier suspected that he would not be welcomed with open arms into the fraternity of pirates. _

_However he thought that he could endure the ostracism; absence might even make the heart grow fonder, and if nothing else, would allow his back to grow a new covering of skin before the next occasion Nylous chose to crack out the whips. _

_He was not free and clear yet but at least he had taken one step closer to the sky and one step away from the pit. _

* * *

_Three weeks later and Balthier (he had now become used to the moniker and claimed it without reservation) had reason yet again to loathe and despise all pirates from the very pit of his soul._

_Having inveigled his freedom from false imprisonment and torture Balthier had then found himself stuck in a pirate town wherein almost no one spoke the standard Ivalic tongue (which made communication with those marginally less hostile denizens of the town difficult) many, many miles from Balfonheim (the only location he had for Remus) without any means to procure transportation to get there._

_It also became readily apparent that no one in Veridree was going to lift a finger to aid him in this task their own bloody pirate king had set him. _

_Damned pirates. _

_It was a very, very, long walk to Balfonheim. _

_He had been on the road, sleeping in barns or on the roadside, for the last twenty days. He had soon discovered that a first class Akademy education was next to useless in the realms of greater Ivalice. _

_If only he had known, before setting off on this grand adventure of self-determination, that he lacked any of the basic skills a man needed to survive outside of Archades. _

_He _could_ shoot a rifle while running backwards and he was a fair swordsman (though hardly exemplary) however this was not of much use when he did not happen to have on his person either rifle or sword, nor the Gil to acquire weaponry._

_He could not speak the native tongue in either Rozzaria or the broken dredges of Landis that he now slunk through and his accent marked him irrevocably as Archadian and he was thus open to be reviled by any Landissians he engaged for aid. _

_Oddly enough, and inspired by necessity more so than a worrying leaning towards kleptomania, he had discovered he had a gift for thievery much exceeding the petty thefts he had perpetrated during his days in Ghis' bureau._

_Which, if perhaps a little worry considering he had been raised in the lap of luxury to want for nothing, was fortuitous in his present circumstances as he would have been long dead of starvation without it. _

_The trick was to steal only what would not be missed and could be easily hidden away on ones person, while maintaining the pretence of aloofness (which was hard to do when one resembled a half-starved, wild eyed vagrant) but even his recent degradations had not diminished his inherent pride and haughty bearing. _

_Thus he had just about managed to survive on the road, though he had hardly prospered. _

_In short, therefore, and at the present moment of time, he was miserable, soaking wet (for yes, it was indeed raining and had been, thunderously, for almost the entire day) and half-out of his mind with hunger as he stumbled along the roadside being liberally splashed by mud from the wheels of the passing passenger Chocobo coaches. _

_It was all a very far cry from the world he had known in Archades._

_So absorbed in his own misfortune was he that Balthier almost didn't hear the plaintive voice coming from underneath an overgrown gorse bush lining the roadside._

'Kupo-po, please sir, can you lend me an' me Kitt aid, kupo?'

_As it happened Balthier almost tripped over the bedraggled, brown furred Moogle female with the blue pom-pom and the tiny bundle of white fluff in her arms that was, on closer observance, an infant Moogle. _

_Next to the Moogle was a makeshift sign wherein, in running ink on a scrap of paper, someone had written, in standard Ivalic, Rozzarian and another language he suspected might be the Moogle's own tongue, two words: 'Highwaste – Nalbina'._

_He who was now Balthier, but had once been Ffamran, had always liked Moogles (more so than Humes it could be argued). _

_As perhaps the only non-hume race that was even remotely tolerated in any number in Archades, Ffamran, as Balthier had been, had been exposed to Moogles from an early age (his first, possibly only, great love had been for his Moogle nanny Ms Penpo who had been the closest thing to a mother he had ever known) and was thusly inclined to generosity towards a Moogle in as sorry a state as he was. _

'Kupo, kupo, oh, thank ye, sir, for stopping; me an' me Kitt have been waitin' for some kind soul t'stop for so long.' Shiny liquid black eyes looked up at him sorrowfully, 'but nae one would. 'Tis a sorry state when nae one will stop t'aid a mother an' her Kitt.'

_Balthier considered this thoughtfully. His nanny Penpo had once told him that to help a Moogle in need was to guarantee that Moogle's friendship for life. She had also gone on to espouse the virtues and manifold values of said friendship with Moogles to the young and impressionable Ffamran. _

_Balthier, Ffamran's successor, had a desperate need for friends and allies and was not too choosy as to how and where he found them. _

'You are headed for this Highwaste place?'

_Balthier had never heard of it, though he thought Nalbina was on the border between the ancient kingdom of Nabradia and the principality of Dalmasca (neither of which were anywhere near Balfonheim, but that was neither here nor there at the moment – he only wished to escape Landis – at this present time). _

_The Moogle nodded her head vigorously, _'Yes Kupo, but we were put out from our convoy and now we cannae get on another coach. The filthy Imperials will' nae allow Moogles on their coaches.'

_The feisty Moogle spat contemptuously, paradoxically Balthier found himself amused. At least this Moogle did not immediately associate _him_ with said 'filthy Imperials'. _

'It t'ain't as if I nae have the Gil for passage…' _the Moogle continued woefully as Balthier's eyes narrowed speculatively. This Moogle had Gil? _

'I have no Gil for the coach, but I do happen to be a Hume. I can try and smuggle you and your infant on with me, if you are willing to pay my fare?'

_The Moogles eyes grew huge and her stubby wings fluttered excitedly, _'Kupo-po? Ye would do that for me an' me wee one?'

_Balthier shrugged, _'we both appear to be in similar circumstances, it is only reasonable we work together to get out of them, hmm?'

_The Moogle woman beamed at him, '_Kupo, kupo. I can tell you are a fine young gentleman, sir, an' it would-nae surprise me if ye been in the good company of Moogles before. Veer few of yere kind would be so open-minded had ye not.'

_The moogle upended her sign and waddled over to him holding up the tiny sleeping bundle of her sleeping 'Kitt' to him. _'Me name is Ludmilla. Do ye 'appen to 'ave room in that there coat pocket of yere's for me Kitt? The rain is not good for him.'

_Balthier blinked in surprise, looking dazedly down at the large pocket of the over sized raincoat (stolen from a scarecrow in a field) that he was wearing. Somewhat awkwardly he picked up Ludmilla and held her in the crook of his arm while she fussed about his pocket placing her infant safely inside._

'There now, all nice an' warm we are me wee bonny bairn.' _Ludmilla looked at him thoughtfully, _'D'ye mind if I ride on ye shoulder? It will be more comfortable for us both.'

_Balthier, feeling more than a trifle strange to have a tiny Moogle infant riding in his pocket (head poking out from under the pocket flap to stare out at the wide road) gathered his wits (and his manners) awkwardly._

'N-no, please be my guest.' _He stuttered falling back on good manners as a last resort and assisting the cheerful Ludmilla to find purchase astride his right shoulder. _

'Ock, where be me manners,' _Ludmilla exclaimed slapping her furred brow with a furred hand and startling Balthier, _'I have-nae asked ye yere name, have I? What ye must think o' me.'

'Balthier,' _he said, the first time he had ever called himself such; Ludmilla smiled and then proceeded to fill the long, trudging, walk back to the coach stop with cheerful Landissian accented chatter. _

_Balthier, alone with his thoughts and his grievances for the last three weeks, found himself oddly uplifted to be in such easy and non-judgement (not to mention friendly) company. _

_Perhaps, he mused, things were not so dire as he had thought. He may not be any closer to Balfonheim, but with any luck, by the time he reached his destination, he would have worked out precisely how to survive in Ivalice after all. _

_It was a long hard walk to the sky and his dreams, but Balthier knew, with renewed confidence, that he would reach that faultless sky one day. _

_All he had to do was keep putting one foot before the other and never, ever, look back._

* * *

_A/N: I don't know why but I have decided that Landis is the Scotland of Ivalice (whereas Archades is essentially the British Empire as was). Hence the cod Scottish accenting I give Ludmilla (and hints of which appear in Hamish' speech as well). For those that don't know England and Scotland have a rather long and bloody history (essentially Scotland has always stated its rights to autonomy and England has always completely ignored them) thus I thought the analogy between Landis/ Archadia fitted well. _


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-four: The Rozzarian Caper Pt2: A thrill Gil can't buy

_A/N: This is the first part of a double update...yay! please enjoy responsibly! ;)_

* * *

'Robbery, my good sir, I'm here to rob you blind.'

There was a discernable moments' silence as Farouk absorbed this cheerful statement of nefarious intent and Balthier reclined comfortably in his chair awaiting the inevitable fireworks.

These were the moments he lived for; those transient seconds wherein he was able to knock askew the natural order of life. A thrill no fabulous fortune in Gil could ever buy.

Farouk Kharna's face under went a myriad of minute transitions, the flexing of his mouth, a flaring of nostrils, the twitching of brows itching to meet in a frown, a tightening of the fine skin around his eyes; all signs of his inner confusion.

'You are making some jest, yes? You are no more than a spoiled Archadian wretch who abuses my good hospitality, eh?'

Farouk smiled thinly, his eyes flinching as he spoke denoting a slight consternation as he battled with suspicion and disbelief.

Balthier leaned back in his chair and nonchalantly crossed one leg over the other, bobbing his foot jauntily as he reached across the table to lift Farouk's own wine glass.

'No jest. I am quite in earnest.' He murmured around the rim of the glass as he swilled the dredges of the plum wine in the fluted crystal glass before taking a sip. All the while he kept his steady, laughing gaze, fixed to Farouk.

'I warn you young man, persist in this ill-advised jest and you shall regret it. I care not from whence you came or who your father be; I am Farouk Kharna and I am not to be trifled with.'

His Rozzarian accent thinned out in his growing anger. Balthier thought he could hear the faint trace of an Archadian inflection in the man's standard Ivalic. This was not overly surprising as most of the well-to-do of Ivalice tended to assume the glass-cut pronunciation of the Gentry as an affection of wealth and status.

Balthier finished off the man's glass of wine, and maintaining eye contact with supreme confidence, reached across the table to refill the glass. He raised the glass in a mock toast to the man before him.

As if mesmerised by his sheer audacity Farouk did not one thing to stop him and instead remained seated across the table staring in gormless befuddlement, caught in a quandary of outrage and disbelief.

'This is a rather fine vintage.' He murmured around another sip of wine, giving the other man a thin smile. He placed the glass, with deliberation, back on the table and drew himself up in his chair.

'And I assure you, I am not a man to indulge in idle trifles either. I have come to ruin you. By the end of this night you shall be a broken man, Farouk Kharna.'

'I will kill you.' Farouk hissed, finally deciding to take Balthier seriously as a threat.

Balthier merely smiled and shook his head, idly running one finger over the rim of his glass and savouring the clean chiming noise that emanated from the rim.

Silently he began to forage inside the shallow well of his soul wherein his own paltry magicks pooled (Fran had made it her thankless task to teach him basic spell casting and whereas his curative casting was reasonably reliable his offensive magicks were more a danger to himself than any enemy he might encounter). Balthier sought the twist of will and word that would invoke a particular spell; one of mind and reason and the undermining of both.

While in his mind he began the incantation some part of him not absorbed solely in that task spoke up to set the scene.

'That would be an exceedingly foolish thing to do.' he pointed out calmly in almost bored tones, not bothering to meet the other man's eyes as he swirled his wine in the glass. 'You shall never stop my associate if you kill me and you will be ruined all the faster.'

Kharna lunged across the table, attempting to make a grab for Balthier. All he succeeded in doing was knocking over the glass of wine as Balthier recoiled out of his reach with the studied grace of a Tchita serpent.

Uncoiling from the chair Balthier swiftly walked over to Farouk Kharna's side as the other man whipped about in his chair, eyes wild with a fury that was still too perplexed to be released, and glared up at Balthier.

'Who are you? What do you want, eh?'

Balthier crouched down beside the slave trader and made a pretence out of picking up the wine glass and daubing the spilled wine with a fold of the tablecloth. With a casual flick of his wrist (an almost effete gesture) Balthier loosed his poised spell under the guise of assisting in cleaning up Kharna's mess.

Kharna shuddered in his chair, the dilation of his dark pupils the only indication Balthier had that his spell had worked.

Abruptly Kharna lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair and shoving Balthier squarely in the chest. The man then lumbered up and staggered out into the aisle between tables and chez longue.

Balthier, fastidiously brushing himself off and picking himself up, jumped to his feet and watched Kharna's unsteady progress through the hall.

The man began to yell out in a confused jumble of Rozzarian and standard Ivalic slurred speech as he careened off tables and half fell into the lap of one of his girls, who shrieked and shoved his weight off her.

Kharna, blind and stupid from the confusion spell, reacted to the sound and made a clumsy grab at the girl, catching hold of her emerald green bustier and tearing it loose.

The woman yelped more in outrage than embarrassment and all in the chamber, in varied states of inebriation, watched Farouk foaming at the mouth and staggering around his chamber like a lunatic.

As Balthier had hoped Farouk's lurking attendant guards left their hidden posts to cluster around their distressed employer. Farouk, growing more and more agitated and enraged, withdrew a dagger from his belt and lashed out at the nearest guard.

Balthier, forgotten in the confusion and drama, raised his hand again, casually, and performed the same wrist flick gesture towards the guards as he had used on Farouk.

One of the guards stumbled back a step as the spell took hold and then, face twisting in a furious scowl, threw himself at another guard, who had until that moment, been restraining Farouk.

Farouk and the two brawling guards crashed into a pile of thick cushions occupied by a languid group of smoke weed intoxicated men and women in various states of dishabille, who reacted about as well as one might expect to being interrupted by three large men falling into their midst at such a delicate time.

Confusion erupted into a full blown riot. Balthier, chuckling to himself, turned sharply on his heel and sought out the hidden doorway Milla had disappeared through not too long ago.

Distraction achieved it was now time to start the theft in earnest.

Sauntering down an elaborately decorated corridor; the walls painted a burnished gold and filigreed with twists of pearlescent mother-of-pearl inlay and green tile, lined with numerous innocuous looking doors. Balthier picked a door at random.

_Eeney, meeny, miny, moe….._

The crash of shattering glass and collapsing furniture punctured his thought process and Balthier looked back over his shoulder briefly towards the sound of the riotous noise in the main foyer before returning to his deliberations.

_...Catch a Couerl by its tail. Eeney, meeny, miny, moe……._

He stopped before one of the glossy cherry wood doors with the elaborate gold door handle. He tried to listen out for any sounds of occupation from within but could not hear anything specific above the din from the main hall.

_...If it squeals let it go…._

Another moments pondering then Balthier stepped back from the doorway and shifted his stance to his back leg.

_Eeney…._

Balthier, despite his chosen occupation, was not a man who enjoyed acts of aggressive physicality, and what he was intending to do, as well as being potentially embarrassingly painful if he performed the manoeuvre incorrectly, was also rather gauche and lacking in subtlety.

……_.Meeny...miny, _

In one explosive movement Balthier kicked the door before him with as much force as he could muster (he could not kick with the element force of Fran, but he was no slouch either, even if he did say so himself). The door tore free of the surprisingly flimsy lock and flew open.

_...Moe! _

A startled feminine shriek and a muffled male curse greeted the abrupt opening of the door. Balthier waited another moment in case of any hostile projectiles or incendiary devices should sail through the opening.

When no such hostility occurred Balthier stepped away from the protection of the adjacent wall.

He walked confidently through the doorway into the bedroom, swathed and smothered in cream and gold gauze and draperies and velvet cushion.

A young woman with long dark hair and voluptuous curves scrabbled to cover herself in the coverlet and the man in the bed beside her froze in the process of reaching for his discarded cloak left draped over the end of the bed.

Balthier stepped swiftly over to the bed and pulled the cloak from the man's grasp. Something heavy and irregularly shaped clunked against the wooden bed as he did so. He smiled.

'Good evening, allow me to apologise for the interruption; I will endeavour to keep this brief.'

He fished through the lining of the cloak (really what man in his right mind wore a cloak in this day and age?) until he found the inside pocket and retrieved from the satin lined pocket the miniature duelling pistol hidden inside.

Admiringly (and with dramatic flourish) Balthier brandished the flintlock pistol to the light and whistled appreciative as he noted the fine craftsmanship and intricate engravings on the ivory and bone grip of the pistol.

'Very nice,' He murmured, checking the safety on the pistol and tucking the item into the waistband of his double belts.

'Now then,' he smiled at the young lady (who did not look much older than sixteen, if he was any judge (no pun intended)) 'if you would be so kind as to get out of the bed, my lady, I require your assistance.'

The girl blinked at him confusedly. The man in the bed (young, immaculately groomed even in the circumstances of the moment and his current lack of attire) flushed in outrage.

'What is the meaning of this?'

Balthier tried to place the insipid, callow youth's accent. Not Rozzarian, not Archadian – Nabradian perhaps?

'How dare you come in here, manhandle my goods, interrupt me in the middle of...' the man trailed off and then shook his head fiercely. 'I paid full price for this slut. How dare you…'

Balthier narrowed his eyes and miraculously the duelling pistol appeared in his hands and his finger cocked the trigger, the barrel pointed steadily at the man's head.

'That, sir, is no way to speak to a young lady.'

The lady in question had wriggled free of the fair-haired man's clammy grip and, wrapped in bedding, clambered from the bed, having seemingly decided that Balthier was the better choice.

'Who are you?' she demanded, wide eyed, in thick Rozzarian accent.

Still pointing the pistol at the man in the bed with one hand, Balthier caught up the girl's free hand (that was not clutching the sheets closed around her body) in his other hand and raised it to his lips.

'Balthier, my lady, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.'

The girl blinked at him dazedly but seemed to appreciate the polite and respectful greeting. Balthier turned back to the man in the bed with cold eyes.

'This is a robbery, sir. Now kindly sit still in that bed while I divest you of your worldly goods and you won't force me to aerate your body with holes.'

The man in the bed opened and closed his mouth like a landed fish, outrage and shock warred across his face.

'My father shall hear of this!'

Balthier, entirely unimpressed by the youth's response, nevertheless quirked one eyebrow speculatively, 'Who is your father?' he asked mildly.

The youth's milk pale complexion suffused with an ugly, smug triumph, clearly interpreting dispassionate interest for hesitation on Balthier's part. He jerked his chin up and looked down his snub nose at Balthier.

'Erasmus Radiall the Older; Chancellor of the Nabradian Exchequer and Privy Councillor to the King of Nabradia.'

Balthier cocked his head to the side and considered these words politely, 'Well, well, 'tis so?'

He smiled thinly, 'In that case be sure to tell your father, when you come to explain to him in detail how you came to be in such a place and have such a calamity befall you,' he saw the youth's expression falter and knew that the young man's father had no idea that his son took his pleasures, and frittered away his Gil, in such a place as this, 'that it was the Seeq pirate Einar who commissioned this crime.'

The youth merely stared at him, as did the young woman. Balthier sighed and gestured with the barrel of the duelling pistol for the girl to begin tying the youth up with the sheets from the bed.

While the young woman took explicit pleasure in binding the squawking, facile youth in satin and silk sheets, going so far as to tear the frill from the bottom of the bed to stuff it in the boy's mouth as a gag, Balthier busied himself picking through the Nabradian's discarded clothing for valuables.

'Oh, now, _this_ is nice.' Balthier fished out a beautiful fob watch, platinum plated and strung on a platinum chain.

He flipped open the watch lid and saw that the face was mother of pearl set with platinum numerals. Looking at the back Balthier saw an inscription (written in Nabradian) engraved on the cool white gold surface; however such things could be easily removed.

Contented Balthier pocketed the fob watch (ignoring the Nabradian's gagged exclamations) a collection of high denomination Gil coins and a matching duelling pistol to the one he had already claimed.

Rising to his feet Balthier nodded his head to the Rozzarian girl who seemed intent on binding the youth so tightly that his fingers had already turned blue from lack of circulation and his arms and legs were pulled from his body at a painful angle.

'I trust you will be quite well if I leave you now to your own devices, hmm?'

The girl, suddenly granted the power in her interaction with the youth, grinned ferociously and nodded, an eager, triumphant light in her eyes.

Balthier decided to leave before he saw something that might prove disturbing. To that end he also pulled closed the door to the room, just in case.

Five repeat performances in five separate rooms later and Balthier had run out of forearm space on each arm for pilfered wristwatches and his belt pouches bulged with rings, bracelets, cufflinks and coins. His sleeves were inflated with folded stolen handkerchiefs (carefully checked for cleanliness beforehand) that he had pushed up inside his cuffs.

As the chaos in the main hall (his confusion spell would have dissipated after the first punch had connected with the jaw of the afflicted – but the fuel of strong drink and smoking weed would take longer to burn down) threatened to spill out into the corridors, Balthier, consulting the memorised floor plan in his mind, made for the hidden staircase beyond the shabby door that led into the extensive cellars of the former palace turned brothel.

Fran should have completed her infiltration by now and be well on the way towards succeeding in the rest of their planned heist.

The sight of a half ajar door along the dank corridor to the cellar area of the palace attracted Balthier's attention and he ducked inside the small store room.

'Hmm, well, fancy that. These should come in handy.'

An open case of hand held incendiary devices sat atop a tower of crates containing an assortment of munitions shells. The walls and wall-bolted shelves were filled with, and obscured by, a wide variety of different weaponry.

Bows and quivers hung from hooks on the wall. Arrow shafts sprouted from upended barrels and a collection of rapiers and short swords had tumbled from a fallen wicker container.

Balthier was busily gathering up some spare shot and loose incendiaries when he noticed the sheath of papers, tucked underneath the case.

'Hello, what is this, hmm?'

Plucking up the pieces of paper, adorned with a collection of officious stamps and seals, he grinned, quick and fierce, before folding the contracts and fiscal bonds into his vest (which was quite an undertaking, involving pulling the neck cuff away from his throat and feeding the papers down inside, secure in the knowledge that the vest was fitted too tightly to allow the documents to slip free).

Hefting the case of incendiaries and whistling a cheery tune between his teeth Balthier walked down the corridor towards another flight of ill-lit, irregularly shaped stairs.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs Balthier emerged into the poorly lit, mildew reeking cellar, damp and fetid and filled with the stench of fear and sweat.

Young women, some barely old enough to have earned the adjective, stared out from behind caged cells, huddled together and manacled at wrist and ankle.

Clearly this was where Farouk kept the girls his men stole from the villages and caravans in the south of Rozzaria before either auctioning them off or 'breaking them in' for use in his own 'establishments'.

Of course, under normal circumstances, Balthier would have expected the emergence of a well dressed, handsome man toting a case of explosives under one arm, to have raised a few titters from the assorted woman, but he was prepared to concede that the floor show Fran was putting on was quite impressive enough to steal the limelight from him.

Fran, her hair and ears unbound from the confines of the makeshift turban he had constructed for her and her orange robes torn and shredded (presumably by her own hands), was standing in the centre of the cellar, one double-heel booted foot pressed, sideways, into the throat of the man lying prostate across the floor.

The man was summarily pinned by Fran's lethal heel at his throat and the other foot stepping on his right hand. The dull, dirt smeared Crystal lamp wall sconce shed paltry light into the cellar that nevertheless caught on the gleaming expanse of Fran's exposed thigh.

The tatters of Fran's robes hung like a fringed skirt around her and her hair tumbled wildly, half free and half still bound by the clips and pins he had used to sculpt her hair; Balthier was not sure he had ever seen a woman more beautiful or quite so fearsome.

In Fran's free hands she deliberately pulled the bolt of orange silk he had wrapped her hair in earlier that evening through her fingers, all the while placing judicious downward pressure on her foot that crushed down on the man's throat.

Balthier smiled. As if sensing his appreciative gaze on her Fran lifted her eyes from the terrified man to Balthier.

He gave her a bow, 'How now, Fran, alls well I take it?'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, while, in an example of virtuoso co-ordination, she ground her foot into the man's throat (careful not to slice the man's jugular open with the tips of her spiked heel).

'This one will not relinquish the keys.' Fran looked down on the man under her feet with something approaching supercilious distain. Balthier sauntered over to her side and looked down on the man mildly.

'Really?' he mused looking into the man's face, thin with hollow cheeks and greying stubble bordering a long jaw and narrow mouth. The man's eyes were rooted in terror to Fran.

Balthier squatted down beside the man's head and looked up at Fran, 'Does he understand me?'

Fran, looking statuesque and devastatingly beautiful from his position near the ground, nodded her head once, never once lessening the pressure she exerted on the man's arm and neck.

Balthier smiled slightly and clicked his fingers in front of the man's face to attract the man's attention.

'Where are the keys?' he queried without preamble. It would not be long before Farouk and his people regained control of the main hall and began looking for he and Fran; they had not the time for lengthy dialogue.

The man stared at him mutely, his eyes very wide and showing a great deal of the bloodshot whites. Fran pressed down almost daintily on his throat and the man spluttered a cough.

Still the man showed no signs of enough intelligent self-determination to give up the location of the cell keys. Balthier looked up at Fran and waved his hand for her to lessen the pressure she exerted on his airway.

The man sucked in a loud, uncouth inhalation, Balthier waved his hand once more and instantly Fran re-exerted the steady pressure of her foot to his gullet.

'Now, sir, be reasonable, all you need do is give us the keys and we shall be out of your way without any unnecessary rancour.'

Balthier looked casually all the way up at Fran, who was still (uncharacteristically, but with an undeniable flair for the dramatic that Balthier could thoroughly appreciate) playing with the long coil of cloth in her hands.

'Of course if you do decide to be difficult Fran will be happy to provide you with plenty of _incentive _to make you more amenable to our request, hmm?'

Fran, playing her role with consummate skill, flexed her long, two inch clawed nails in the air. She twinkled the fingers of each hand before, with the exquisite timing of a professional stage starlet, shredding the cloth in her hands.

Tiny fragments of orange silk fluttered down through the grainy light to settle, like snow, onto the man's chest. The slave keeper let out a tight, strangled whimper.

With his free hand the man cautiously gestured to his right boot, careful not to make any sudden moves.

Wrinkling his noise against the distasteful duty, Balthier pulled the boot free and detached the key-ring from the makeshift shin garter the man wore. Swiftly he jiggled the keys in front of the man's eyes.

'Which one?'

The man whimpered and pointed to one rust speckled key on the ring and Balthier jumped smoothly to his feet and opened the first of the cages.

'Here we are ladies; free at last.'

Balthier declared grandly as he unchained the shivering women's legs and wrists and bowed them through the door. Exhausted and half-starved the women did little more than stumble numbly through the cell doors.

They continued to gather in dull-eyed stupor in the cellar room, eyes darting about like frightened fireflies, until Balthier pushed the first of the incendiary devices into one of the older women's hands. He glanced over at Fran who still pinned the slave keeper to the ground.

'Fran, translate for me would you?'

He nodded towards the frightened women when Fran looked over at him. She arched an eyebrow and looked down pointedly at the man under her feet. Balthier shrugged dismissively.

'A waste of good air, if you ask me, but do as you see fit.'

Balthier looked disdainfully over at the man, before continuing to stroll down the messy lines of frightened, blank-eyed young women handing out incendiary devices in much the same way one might give posies to pretty girls at a fare.

Fran decided to be merciful (after a fashion). Crouching down and straddling the man she pulled back one fist and punched him squarely between the eyes, knocking him out cold.

Stepping away from the man Fran spoke in cool commanding tones to the women, explaining both the purpose behind the incendiaries, who he and Fran were and their business in the palace, and how to use said in incendiary devices. Balthier did not need to understand the words to know what Fran said; they had already agreed the script before they set out that night.

After all, who better to wreak untold vengeance on Farouk Kharna and his minions than those women who had been made the man's victims?

As the women began to grasp the dramatic upswing in the fortunes and turned, in one angry mass, towards the stairs to the main floors, brandishing their incendiaries and righteous fury, Balthier wandered over to one of the dingy walls of the cellar.

As Fran watched him curious, but prepared to wait and see what he had planned, Balthier drew a dagger from his belt and scraped a crude 'E' into the wall and then drew a circle around it.

'Such vandalism would seem beneath the dignity of the leading man, Balthier.' Fran pointed out bemused once he had finished to his satisfaction.

'Indeed it is, Fran, but this is not the calling card of the leading man. This is Einar's favoured mark.'

'An 'E'?' Fran sounded incredulous as she stepped over to trace the etched mark with one dainty claw.

Balthier smirked with a dismissive shrug, 'You did not assume that that toad was literate, did you Fran? A single letter is all he can likely manage. If I want _this_ to be taken as an authentic piece of evidence against the bastard Seeq I must not over estimate his capabilities.'

Fran raised both eyebrows, 'I see.' Was all she said in response; then stepping towards the door she turned back to him with dry inquiry.

'Are you finished with your vengeance now, Balthier, is it not time the leading man vacated the stage for the safety of the wings?'

Balthier smiled and swept her a courtly bow while gesturing for her to precede him up the cellar stairs, 'You are quite right Fran, where would I be without you, hmm?'

Fran shot him a look over her shoulder, 'I shall not dignify that with an answer, save that you would likely have no need for the worldly goods you are weighted down with presently, where you would likely reside, if not for my intervention.'

Balthier laughed, the sound absorbed in the first cracking thunderous pops of incendiaries going off. Without further ado he and Fran beat their hasty retreat, their business concluded.

Later, from an opposing rooftop in Vishini Balthier, reclining back on his elbows, one leg drawn up the other daggling over the rooftop; Fran perched sideways on the roof, long legs half extended and now freed of her orange robes. Together they watched the palace burn and the Humes far below scurry hither and thither in a panic.

Balthier sighed deeply with satisfaction, taking a healthy swig from the bottle of vintage Rozzarian wine he had pilfered from another cellar storeroom during their escape.

Without looking over at Fran he nodded his head to gesture to the chaos below them. 'Tell me you did not enjoy every minute of that caper Fran. Nay, in fact I know you did and to say other would make you a liar.' he declared cheerfully.

Fran shifted so that she settled beside him, her own long legs hanging over the roof, she deftly took the bottle from him and demurely raised it to her lips.

'I did not enjoy it.' She said coolly, not meeting his eyes.

Balthier grinned slow and wicked, still almost intoxicated by the thrill of the game; the exhalation of the caper, the ruse, the dance of misdirection and confused expectations that had become the bread and butter of his existence.

He leaned towards Fran, deliberately slowly, ostensibly to take back the wine bottle. His reach brought his face very close to hers; she kept her profile turned away from him, seemingly engrossed in watching the fallout of the chaos they had sown.

'Liar,' Balthier whispered, silkily, and spurred on by the brilliance of his pleasure and lingering excitement, and simply because he wanted to, he brushed his lips against her lips.

The barest stroke of a kiss and greatest breach of her boundaries he had ever attempted. He withdrew almost immediately and waited for Fran's response.

Fran smiled minutely, but gave no other reaction to his audacity.

'I am in good company then, am I not?' she murmured in answer to his accusation.

Balthier smiled, retrieving his wine and knowing that he had claimed something much more precious than that in bargain.

'The best Fran; only the very best for you.'

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A/N: ……we're in the home stretch now, people. Four more chapters to go before I put this story to bed!


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-five: Balthier's Beginning: Pt3: I climb the sky, ere I be free

_A/N: First things first this is the second part of a double update, if you are just 'clicking on' don't miss out on the preceding chapter!_

_(Author rant): I will come out and say it now: I HATED mark hunting in the game. I managed to complete the game the first time with low levelled characters (Balthier, my strongest party member, was only Lv 51) through judicious use of the Bubble belt and performed only the absolute minimum of mark hunts to acquire said belts. _

_The hunts were just so bloody irritating (once you found the petitioner the mark was never anywhere near them and you had to go traipsing about looking for it! – argh! - Why couldn't those NPC's kill their own monsters! Ahem - so I am venting through Balthier in this chapter a little bit. ;) _

* * *

Gods bless Nanny Penpo, wherever she now resides_, Balthier thought contentedly as he sat back in his chair in the small wayfarers inn (more of a plyboard shack than an inn but his standards had since altered in perception after many months out and about in Ivalice). _

_He was not completely sure where he was except (ironically) he was now once more within Archadia's borders headed towards the Phon Coast from the Feywood (which had been quite lovely and well worth the visit). _

_Across the rickety table from him his bevy of Moogle companions were involved in a lively debate about some such matter of mechanical engineering. Comfortably languid with a full belly Balthier did not feel inclined to join in, though he kept an ear open and absorbed any stray knowledge that passed him by. _

_Balthier had been acting as, essentially, Hume liaison for this nomadic group of travelling Moogle engineers, cartographers and assorted Moogles without portfolio for the last several months, ever since his chance meeting with Ludmilla (designated cook for the travelling party). _

_After smuggling Ludmilla and her son Kitt in his travelling bindle from Landis to Nalbina (and that had been an exercise in ingenuity) Ludmilla, undoubtedly shrewd enough to know that Balthier would not get very far on his own, had invited him to dine with her Moogle companions in the Tower Tavern Nalbina. _

_It had proved to be a very profitable meal. _

_An amateurs love of engineering had given Balthier the impetus to bridge the cultural divide between himself and the Moogles and, as they were all suffering under the prejudicial heel of Hume run Ivalice and needed assistance to cross into Archadia, he had offered to facilitate their passage in return for food and board. _

_Apparently, and to Balthier and his companions pleasure, a young man with a proud bearing and an Archadian accent could easily persuade Imperial border guards to allow he and his troupe of Moogle workmen to pass unmolested into the Empire. _

_Thus, after this successful collaboration, a happy partnership had been formed._

_A partnership that was sadly now coming to its close as the Moogles had decided to head for the northern cities of the Empire to ply their trade and he, of course, was headed for Balfonheim. _

_Still he thought he might maintain his ties with these happy Moogles. He had learned a great deal from them; whereas before his engineering expertise had extended no further than a few little home projects and theoretical drawings, under the Moogles tutelage he had become a passable practical engineer. _

_It was a skill he could utilise to survive in Ivalice if push came to shove and he found himself in need of an honest trade. Thus he had every intention to pay back his debt of gratitude to his Moogle companions once he had achieved his goals (namely retrieving the Strahl and exacting a convoluted but satisfying revenge on Remus). _

_He would be the first Hume patron of the Moogle arts and design. _

_Balthier was half listening to a theoretical debate over the relative merits and possible technical difficulties of a Moogle created and maintained system of instant transportation between inter-linked and pre-determined locations via something being referred to as 'Moogling posts', when a large hand fell heavily onto his shoulder jolting him out of his lazy contentment. _

_Almost five months spent relying on his own wits and the kindness of strange Moogles had sharpened Balthier's survival reflexes so that he had his dagger drawn and had twisted out of his assailant's grip in an instant._

_As he sprang to his feet, dagger careful hidden alongside his leg (he knew better than to brandish a weapon in a public place) Balthier turned to face his possible aggressor only to feel his jaw trying to unhinge and his mouth open in an unbecoming gape of astonishment (which he promptly put a stop to; that sort of behaviour hardly bespoke of worldly sophistication. He was not some country bumpkin after all.) _

_Hamish Fon Denbak stood before him grinning enormously and looking considerably better than the last time Balthier (as Ffamran) had seen him. _

'Gods alive Ffamran, you're actually still alive.'

_Acutely aware of each one of the Moogle collective staring at he and Hamish transfixed, Balthier attempted to affect a look that was at once polite but distant._

'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't believe we've met. You must be mistaking me for _someone else_.' _Balthier put especial emphasis on the last two words, hoping to portray his implicit meaning to the Landissian. _

_He would have had more luck semaphoring the message for all the attention Hamish paid to the subtle warning. _

_Before Balthier could act the larger, older, stronger, man had enveloped him in a bear-hug that threatened to crush the life out of him, if Balthier did not in fact first die from sheer mortification. _

'By all that's Holy, Ffamran lad, I'm glad to see you.'

_Hamish exclaimed still using the old name that could get them both in a lot of difficulty. _

_Balthier had no idea what fall-out had occurred after the Judiciary Dungeon raid but he did not doubt that Ffamran Mid Bunansa's part in it was now well known and even if, because of his father's status, the nature of his treason was not publicly announced he did not doubt that the Judiciary would be searching for him and their missing scapegoat quite vigorously. _

_(For just the briefest of moments Balthier wondered if that had not been part of the motivation for his enforced imprisonment – to hide Ffamran Mid Bunansa away from the questing gaze of the Empire?) _

_Shaking off introspection (and unwilling to make justifications for his treatment at the hands of Nylous and Remus) Balthier wriggled to break free of the smothering (entirely unwarranted) and decidedly unwelcome embrace (he was Archadian after all; Archadian's simply did not make expansive physical gestures of affection)._

_Balthier, with panic swirling in his gut, tried with growing exasperation to extricate himself from this awkward moment._

'I am sorry sir, but you have the wrong person. I am not this Ffamran you speak of, my name is – '

_Hamish ignored him. Balthier might as well have been talking to a brick wall; a brick wall that could talk (worryingly loudly)._

'I had a run in with Remus and his _woman,' a contemptuous curl of the lip,_ _'_about a fortnight past.He said that he did not know what had happened to you, boy,' _a darker frown; anger in the cool eyes. _'He said that he left you with the pirate king in Veridree.'

_Balthier was barely listening. He had, in fact, stopped listening as soon as Hamish had mentioned an encounter with Remus and Ruthy scant two weeks ago. His spirits surged and he gave up the pretence of unfamiliarity with the large Landissian before him. _

'You have seen Remus? Where; do you know where he is now? What airship was he piloting, if any?' _In his desire to know Balthier had reached out to clasp the older man's homespun sleeve in a tight grip. _

_Hamish frowned, _'Aye I saw him. It was in Fandalin, northern Landis as was. The brute was trying to raid one of the fallen reliquary's of Landis.' _Hamish smiled coldly, _'My men and I put a stop to it. As for a craft it was the pretty little ship that we used to escape Archades all those months past.'

_A smile of pure relief and beatific hope infused Balthier's features, he sighed, '_The Strahl; he still has her then.'

_Hamish frowned at him quizzically, _'Aye, he does. Ffamran what is going on, lad? Where have you been and what has happened to you?'

_Balthier waved his hand impatiently not even noticing that Hamish continued to refer to him by the old name he had disregarded, _'That is hardly important. You must take me to Remus. He has my ship and I want it back.'

_Hamish drew back in the manner of a startled Chocobo, _'Have you run completely mad, boy? You want to go back to that bastard after what he did? Have you not learned your lesson; pirates cannot be trusted, Ffamran.'

_Balthier frowned, _'Ffamran is not my name; I am _Balthier _now. Kindly remember that, and as for your disparagement of pirates; need I remind you that you owe your freedom to pirates, hmm?'

_Hamish shook his head firmly, _'I owe my freedom to you, Ffamran.'

_Balthier snarled with annoyance and shook his head aggressively, not appreciating the gratitude in the older man's eyes and, quite frankly, embarrassed by it. _

'_Balthier_ – do I have to repeat myself? And your point is moot, because as soon as feasible I intend to become a _pirate_ _with_ _my own damned ship_. So, you see, you owe me and you owe the pirates, which will soon amount to the same bloody thing, so kindly take me to Remus.'

_Hamish' eyes widened fractionally at both Balthier's tone and his fervour. He shook his head not in refusal (for he did indeed owe Balthier a debt) but in bemusement. _

'You are mad. The pirates have addled your wits.'

_Balthier, sensing his victory, and ignoring the aspersions against his sanity, smirked at the older man and replied flippantly, _'I am not mad; I'm flying.'

* * *

_Four weeks later Balthier and Hamish had reached the Naldoa Coast a stones throw from the Tchita Upland ranges that would eventually dwindle downhill into the Cerobi Steppes and wind up, after another interminably long walk, in the port of Balfonheim. _

_As had become the fashion of their journey Balthier and Hamish were involved in an ill-spirited disagreement (or, more accurately, Balthier was ill-spirited and disagreeable and Hamish was peacefully intractable). _

'I simply fail to see the point in this. We should push on to Balfonheim.' _Balthier scowled, folding his arms across his chest and glowering at the notice board in the hunters inn thickly plastered with pieces of paper, referred to by aficionados as: 'bills of mark'. _

'And I have told _you,_ Ffamran, mark hunting is an honest way for a young man such as you to earn independent wealth.'

_Hamish sighed as he perused the board with a knowledgeable eye for a suitable Mark to introduce his young charge (for he had assumed responsibility for Balthier that the other did not appreciate nor acknowledge) to the vocation of mark hunting. _

'Mark hunting is a monumental waste of time. If these 'petitioners' expended half the energy and time they placed in waiting for someone else to solve their problems and took care of things themselves they would find themselves considerably better off in the long run.'

_Balthier snapped. He could not understand the principle behind 'mark hunting', which seemed to him utterly ridiculous when even the lowliest of tenement farmers son's was trained in the use of a sword, and fiend eradication was something that every rural citizen of Ivalice was well versed in. _

'Ffamran, for the love of all that's holy, would you get off your high horse and pick a mark.' _Hamish allowed some of his exasperation to leech into his speech. _

_The Landissian had, strangely, developed a great sense of affection for the arrogant, aloof, possibly deranged Archadian who had, for seemingly no reason chosen to liberate Hamish from a death sentence and paid a heavy price for that act of benevolence. _

_However this did not mean that there were not occasions (such as this) along their journey when he had to resist the desire to throttle the boy. _

'No. If you insist on engaging in this stupendous waste of time then that is your prerogative but I'll have no part in it.'

_Balthier turned his head away from the other man petulantly, arms folded over the dull brown waistcoat he wore over the faded white shirt tucked into the hand-me-down travelling trousers and hiking boots with worn soles. _

_A taut silence fell upon the two as Balthier refused to compromise and Hamish struggled with his temper. _

_After a moment Hamish plucked a mark bill from the board more or less at random, and studied it. _

'The petitioner should be waiting in Tchita. It's on our way so we shall meet with this man as we make for Balfonheim.'

_Hamish tried to make his voice conciliatory; Hamish had a terrible fear that Ffamran (or Balthier has he had taken to calling himself for some reason best known to himself) would simply try and make for Balfonheim on his own if Hamish pushed too far. _

_Hamish did not doubt the boy's survival skills for he seemed too stubborn to succumb to any fiend in Tchita or Cerobi; instead he worried about the mayhem Ffamran would likely cause on his own if left unattended. _

_For his part Balthier recognised that he would find it considerably harder to navigate Tchita and Cerobi safely on his own and thus could not afford to alienate Hamish too greatly. _

'Very well, but if the Mark, or whatever the damn thing is called, is in the opposing direction or adds too much time to our journey we are to refuse it.' _He stated imperiously. _

_As far as Balthier was concerned Hamish owed him his life and should be grateful enough to be considerably less demanding. _

'Aye, lad, whatever you say.'

_Hamish did his best to hide his smile as, not waiting for his assent, Balthier turned and led the way out of the tiny hunters' inn._

* * *

'That is the mark?'

_Balthier exclaimed, only just managing to smother genuine alarm behind a coolly inquiring tone that, sadly, was gain-sayed by the boyish widening of his eyes as he looked over the ridge in the Cerobi Steppes to espy the enormous, lumbering Ring Wyrm slumbering in the tall grass._

'Aye, I'd say so.' _Hamish detached his battleaxe from his belt and nudged the a-gog boy to have him ready his rifle. _'If we are quiet we should be able to sneak upon it while it sleeps unawares. It will give the advantage of this engagement to us.'

_Balthier turned to stare at him, astonishment, contempt and disbelief warring for dominance on his sharp young features before forcibly gaining control of his expression and snapping the carefully cultivated mask of dry disinterest into place upon his countenance._

'Are you entirely insane? If it is asleep then we can slip by without it knowing. Why, for the gods own sake, would we engage _that _in combat?'

_Hamish frowned, gesturing for the younger man to keep his voice down with one hand while the other gripped his battleaxe expectantly._

'This is the mark we have been hunting, lad. We made an agreement with the petitioner.'

_Balthier frowned, _'_You_ made the agreement, not I, and in any event what does it matter? It was not a written contract and that old man has no means, or justification, for reprisal if we do not kill that creature.'

_Hamish woefully shook his head in regards of Balthier's evident lack of honour and personal integrity. It was Hamish' belief that there was a good heart in the boy but it was hidden under a youth's bluster and an Archadian education. _

'It was an agreement of principle, Ffamran. What manner of man would I be if I accepted a mark in good faith and then did not bother to fulfil my side of the agreement?'

_Balthier glared exasperated, _'A man with some modicum of intellect.' _He hissed, in open annoyance. _

'Do you think your honour will save you when that monstrous beast is busily eviscerating you? Or that the geriatric you made said _moral pact_ with will feel so much as a twinge of guilt or responsibility should you and I become carrion for the wyverns while attempting to fulfil said contract?'

_Hamish shook his head in quiet despair at the moral bankruptcy of Archadian youth and then, without a word to Balthier, rose from his prone position on the top of the ridge and stealthily descended the slope towards the sleeping Wyrm._

_Balthier scrabbled to his feet in astonished alarm. _'What are you – ?' _Balthier swore passionately. _'Oh, bloody hell, you moronic…'

_Balthier continued to spit curses at the older man, who did not listen, as he racked a bullet into the chamber of the rifle Hamish had bought for him and took aim at the creature, timing his shot to coincide with Hamish first swing of his axe. _

_Forty minutes later, Balthier and Hamish, panting and liberally soaked in exertion sweat and Wyrm viscera were engaged in another argument. _

'I do not care for rankings. I have no will to be a mark hunter.' _Balthier snapped as he tried to scrub thick, tacky, Wyrm blood from his face with a clean patch on his sleeve. _

_Hamish unconcerned with his own state of disrepair was nevertheless growing increasingly exasperated with the young man before him. Barely seventeen and carrying around more pride and self-importance than a man of five times his age could legitimately earn. _

'Ffamran we must return to the petitioner to let him know the mark is vanquished and gain our reward. You should lay claim to the kill for yourself and rise in the ranks. Even if you do not wish to pursue it professionally, mark hunting is a far more respectable occupation than sky piracy, for the gods own sake.'

_Balthier narrowed his eyes dangerously at the other man, _'If I did not know better, Hamish, I might begin to think that you are seeking to renege on your promise to take me to Remus. Perhaps that vaulted honour of yours does not extend to all your promises, hmm?'

_Hamish frowned, _'Lad I promised to take you to Balfonheim and I shall, but I beg you, boy, reconsider. If it's adventure you want, Ffamran, then come back with me and join the Army of Liberation. Do not go through with this dangerous obsession of yours.'

_Balthier laughed assuming that Hamish was making a jest. The very notion of an Archadian former Judge joining the ranks of the Landissian freedom fighters was simply laughable. _

_The serious expression on Hamish' grave face stole the mirth from his lips however. Balthier shook his head once more exasperated. _

'I won't dignify that ridiculous suggestion with an answer, Hamish, and will extend you the courtesy of forgetting you ever made it.'

_Balthier hoped that would be the end of the matter. The Landissian man was fast wearing down on his patience. He wished Hamish no ill will at all but they would likely have a serious altercation should the man keep assuming moral responsibility for all Balthier's actions. _

_He could take responsibility for himself, thank you kindly, and do so without being overly troubled by over weaning morals._

_Hamish could not let the matter drop however._

_Though, in truth, he did not truly know this boy who, anger awkwardly suppressed and completely apparent in his every gesture, turned and started forging ahead towards the downward slope of the steppes and the port of Balfonheim, yet Hamish knew enough about him to feel a need to intervene and prevent the lad from walking into further folly of his own making. _

'No one airship is worth the price you will pay Ffamran. If you wish to learn to fly then I will find you an instructor in Landis.'

_Balthier stopped dead in his tracks and then wheeled, jerkily, around to face the older man with wild, furious eyes. _

'This is not about a bloody airship,' _Balthier snarled, voice rising in his passion, even as he made a lie of the facile justification he had used on Hamish to explain his desire to reach Balfonheim._

'Do you think me a bloody fool? I _know_ that Remus will not take well to me, that I will likely suffer through some form of degradation and demeaning labours in his employ. That is not the point.'

_Balthier shook his head, chest heavy as he tried to force the rage back inside him. These forms of indiscreet, over-wrought expressions of true feeling were not the sort of thing the type of man he was endeavouring to become, would engage in. _

_Despite this, despite wishing he could excise from his being the percolating rage and frustration inside him, Balthier felt angry words (a need for just one person to finally, finally _understand _why he did what he did) force their way through his lips. _

'Don't you bloody see? I _chose_ this. I agreed to make myself a pirate's slave, and, yes, I concede I did not truly comprehend what this would entail and what I might have to suffer, but nevertheless it was my own _choice_.'

'A poor choice Ffamran; a very poor choice.'

_Balthier, who had closed his eyes in an attempt to regain control of himself, felt his eyes snap open again and he fixed Hamish with cold, burning eyes._

'Be that as it may,' _he replied once more in cold, clean diction, _'but it was still my choice and if I need to be rescued from it, then I shall rescue myself.'

_Balthier paused, caught between the paradoxical urge to explain, to unburden himself, and the desire to be well rid of the daft, moralistic over-the-hill soldier once and for all. _

_The impulse to confess won; however Balthier knew that this was not the person to understand him. If such a person existed who could understand the impulses that drove him Balthier had yet to meet him or her. _

_He somewhat feared he never would. _

'Try to understand, Hamish,' _Balthier almost pleaded, in the patient tones of one trying to describe colour to the born blind, '_For the first time in my life I am free to make my own choices, be they ill-advised or otherwise, and no-one is ever going to inhibit my will to choose again. And for the last bloody time my name is _not_ Ffamran, understood?'

_Hamish, who understood a need to fight for personal liberty and freedom better than Balthier might give him credit for, nevertheless shook his head in disagreement. _

'Ffamran, you are too young to know _what_ choice _is_. Freedom is not absence of restraint, boy; it is about knowing your mind and heart, and you are still a stranger to yourself.'

_Balthier bared his teeth in a coldly disdainful sneer; he flapped his hand in irritated dismissal of Hamish' words._

'Spare me your pat moralising. My mind is set and if you find assisting me further too great an imposition on your moral sensibilities then I gladly release you from our agreement. Go and meet your petitioner, Hamish. You and I are through.'

_Without waiting for a reply from the other man, Balthier turned sharply on his heel, rifle propped against his shoulder, and began to walk swiftly through the thigh-high grasses of the Cerobi Steppes. _

_Hamish watched him go for a moment, then, with disappointment permeating his every move, he replaced his axe on his belt and began to follow Balthier. _

_He kept a careful distance from the angry young man but remained close enough to protect him from any roving fiends. Hamish kept his promise and escorted he who was once Ffamran Mid Bunansa into the pirates haven of Balfonheim, despite personal misgivings. _

_Nevertheless Hamish could not repress the hope that one day, when the proud and wilful young lad before him had grown in years and wisdom, he would be able to forgive Hamish for not intervening and saving him from himself this day. _

_Although, in truth, Hamish conceded, as he guided the Archadian boy to the raucous Whitecap Tavern, such forgiveness would be poor recompense as Hamish would never forgive himself. _

* * *

_A/N: next Ffamran chapter (or Balthier the early years as it is now) will be the last. Is anyone else thinking about a certain slave auction? ;)_


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Six: Dovetails and full-circles

_A/N: Those of you who have read 'Legends' might recognise some of the dialogue at the beginning of this chapter……I couldn't resist tying this story into the epilogue of 'Legends' and expanding upon it a little. _

_Also I have noticed an error in continuity (gasp). In Legends it states that Fran has not told Balthier about Eruyt but of course, I had her do just that in this story (ooops...this is what happens when you write a trilogy in the wrong order!) _

_So, um, what Fran __meant__ was that she hasn't told Balthier everything about Eruyt and that she has told him nothing about what she did for the last fifty years since leaving the Wood and before meeting him….err, yeah, so, that'll work! ;)_

* * *

The mirror beckoned.

Upon waking that morning (rising with the lark and before the linnet) Balthier had found himself in an odd mood.

After successfully orchestrating an intra-gang war between Einar and almost everyone else for the last five weeks (and making an obscene amount of Gil in the process), he and Fran had decided to take a much needed vacation to a small, unpopulated Purveema on the edge of the Dorstonis air continent.

For the last week he, Fran, and Nono had lazed about in complete comfort on a semi-tropical floating island paradise with not a care in the world. Then he had grown bored, as he was wont to do.

So without fuss or rancour they had taken wing and flown down to be among the ground dwellers once more, which was the only reason the 'summons' had reached Balthier's ears in the first place; had he stayed put on his island he could have remained in blissful ignorance.

Alas what was done was done and now he was standing before the shaving mirror in the bathroom of the Strahl, staring into his unshaven reflection.

Staring into Ffamran's eyes.

'Balthier?'

Fran tapped on the closed door of the bathroom and startled Balthier from his rumination over his expression.

'One moment,' he called, bestirring himself to start and then finish his ablutions. He thought he heard Fran's long suffering sigh and then the muffled click of her heels on the metal grating of the gangway as she departed.

Balthier picked up his bone handled razor and then hesitated, foam on face and razor poised. Ffamran's eyes stared back at him from the other side of the mirror.

Shaking his head in disgust, and avoiding the direct gaze of his own personal revenant, Balthier began the process of shaving, which had become considerable more complex since he had decided to cultivate sideburns.

Though the extra time and care was worth it, Balthier thought. He rather liked them as he felt they leant him a distinguished air and belayed his youth. Fran seemed favourable as well, which was an added bonus.

After Balthier had washed the residue foam away from his clean shaven face he found himself face to face with Ffamran once more.

Wondering why he did it even as his hand moved, Balthier raised his palm to press it against the glass.

He did it not to obscure his view of the boy he used to be (a memory caught and frozen in an unguarded expression; a moments sombre reflection in a life spent engaged in idle witticism) but instead to embrace it.

After everything that had happened in the last year Balthier no longer wanted to run from Ffamran. He wanted to feel some level of acceptance, or at least a lasting truce, with who he used to be. After a year of war in Ivalice Balthier wanted to be at peace with himself.

He flexed his fingers over the misty surface of the mirror and Ffamran did the same from the other side.

Brown eyes met brown eyes. Balthier scrutinised the reflection, hunting for hints of the boy he barely remembered being; the childhood that had been good (gods damn it, but he had been so happy once; he and Cid, his father and the happy world that Ffamran had known).

Balthier looked critically at the man in the mirror; the fresh piercings in the rims and lobes of each ear (Fran had been incredulous, unable to understand how he could mutilate his ears in such a way).

He inspected the slanting sideburns that just brushed his cheeks and glared fiercely into the sharp, proud, fox-like features of his own face.

Eventually Balthier withdrew his hand from the mirror; there was no Ffamran here. There was only Balthier, only the man standing in front of the mirror. The boy was gone, lost, broken and doubtless forgotten by any who had once known him.

Balthier closed his eyes tightly against a strange muted sense of loss that sprang from the shadows in his heart; an emotion to amorphous to be regret or anger; to bright and sharp to be sadness or grief.

He did not regret what he had done or what he had become; he had worked too hard to attain the sky to mourn the loss of his shackles. Yet there was always something missing that he could not quite put his finger on (or more accurately simply did not wish to name).

The truth was, (and oh, it was a bitter truth) Balthier missed Ffamran.

Shaking his head against such strange, introspective thoughts, Balthier finished his grooming and washing and dressed swiftly, draping a towel over his shoulders as he walked towards the Strahl's cockpit.

'What kind of a name is Reddas anyway?'

Balthier demanded as he strode into the cockpit. He was still a little irked (not to mention wary) of this recent 'summons' to meet and greet the new pirate king of Balfonheim.

'An assumed one, I would surmise.' Fran murmured as Balthier dropped into his seat beside her.

Initially Balthier had refused the invitation, which, in turn, had only motivated Reddas to make it an offer he could not refuse (unless he wanted to become permanently persona non grata in Balfonheim) and thus he and Fran were now set to make all speed to Balfonheim to meet a man Balthier was almost certain he would dislike on principle alone.

He had an instinctive dislike of pirate kings; just thinking too long on the last one was like to give him phantom twinges where the whips bite had left trails of scars in lattice-like fashion across his back.

'Obviously.' Balthier agreed wreching himself from dark thoguhts. 'I was referring to the choice, more so than the providence.'

'It is lacking in elegance, I suppose?' Fran suggested as she started the engines.

'It lacks a certain mystique, I would argue.' Balthier smirked, livening up with and to the banter between them.

Fran glanced at him coolly and quirked a habitually eyebrow as he launched the Strahl upwards into the indigo night sky.

'The mystique of a name such as_ Balthier_?'

Balthier smiled at Fran's pointed comment. In a gesture of reciprocity he had laid out for Fran his entire life story, barring only the details that were of no factual or entertainment value. He was tired of lying to the only friend he had. _A pirate must have one person in his crew that he can be honest with, after all. _

'A fine pirate name, certainly.' He demurred.

They were quiet for a short time, concentrating on nothing save making sure they did not fall from the sky (and despite the Strahl's temperamental tendencies there was little chance of that.)

'Do you suspect trouble?' Fran asked him as they sailed through moonlit sky towards Balfonheim.

Balthier glanced at her briefly, 'No. Do you?'

Fran shook her head, 'You seem tense.' She flicked a hand to indicate his general demeanour.

Balthier looked down at the new vest he wore, green and silver embroidery perhaps a little more understated than his usual fare, but the colour scheme would make up for that. Of course bright colours and a dazzling smile would not fool Fran.

He sighed, 'I am not thrilled with the prospect of making the acquaintance of another pirate king. I have no intention of giving fealty in any rate.'

'Rikken and Elza said only that Reddas wished to meet the pirate responsible for deposing Nylous. Do you not trust their word?'

Fran glanced at him once more before turning to check a weather formation building withershins to their current heading that might prove problematic if it continued to build.

'Oh, no more or less than I trust the word of any other pirate,' Balthier said in off-handed answer. He thought for a moment and then chose to elaborate.

'It is the fact that we know so little of this Reddas chap that bothers me. Pirates, especially those who would be kings, ought have a past.'

'Your words surprise me, Balthier, as you would seek to bury your own.'

Fran pointed out dryly as the lights of Balfonheim pricked the velvet dark horizon.

Balthier turned to throw a quick grin her way, though in truth her words rankled for some reason, 'That's true Fran, but I still _have_ a past. This man Reddas appears from nowhere as if conjured from Mist.'

It was ironic, was it not, that he had just been pondering on the nature of abandoning ones past and now his conversation with Fran seemed to run eerily parallel with his own thoughts. Not for the first time Balthier entertained the notion that Fran could read his mind.

'Sky Piracy has made you paranoid, Balthier.' Fran teased gently jolting him from his darkening thoughts with impeccable timing.

Balthier scoffed, 'Paranoia is a fine thing in moderation but I prefer to consider this as due prudence.'

Fran allowed a ghost of a smile to light, briefly upon her lips, 'As you say, Balthier.'

They settled into companionable silence for awhile.

Within that companionable silence Balthier struggled to occupy his mind with something other than the strange - if not dissatisfaction – then a sense of restlessness, a creeping apprehension under the skin that stirred the spectres of old ghosts in his mind.

Deliberately and forcibly he wrested his thoughts from uncomfortably subjects of inquiry and thought instead on infamy.

'I have been thinking about our next caper, Fran.'

'We are destined for the Mosphoran Highwaste with the counterfeit Licence certificates.'

Fran reminded him leadenly. He knew she enjoyed their heists as much as he; but their partnership required at least one of them to keep a mind to the practicalities. Gil did not grow on trees after all.

Balthier, not wanting to be diverted, shook his head, 'That's business Fran. I was referring to our next big heist.'

Fran internalised her smile, waiting for the big reveal. He caught the slight flicker of something akin to amusement and keen interest heat her eyes briefly before she controlled it.

That one little quiver was enough for Balthier.

'In a little over six months Vayne Solidor is to take up his consulship of Dalmasca.'

Balthier informed Fran in a conversational tone of voice. He kept his eyes on the approaching Balfonheim.

Fran studied the read-outs of her monitors and gauges, making sure nothing untoward would affect their descent and landing into the port.

'I was aware of this.'

'Hmm.' Balthier all but purred, a smile twitching his lips.

'We have never stolen from Dalmasca before.'

Fran glanced at him as he brought the ship into dock smoothly.

'You once said that Dalmasca had nothing to offer the discerning thief but sunburn and Chocobo excrement.'

She reminded him pointedly.

Balthier turned to her as they powered down the ship. 'I'm sure there must be something of value in the treasury, Fran.'

Balthier had never had a great interest Dalmasca and did not in fact even _like _the crown city of Rabanastre (foul, stinking arid place) yet, the little itch in his mind, that he labelled as the lingering resentment and grief for Nabradia and Nalbina, had fixated on Dalmasca as, strangely, a chance to try again.

'Something Vayne Solidor would pay handsomely to have returned to him.'

This notion of 'trying again' disturbed Balthier even as it became an increasing obsession, for he did not precisely know what he wished to 'try again' at achieving and thus he did not allow himself to dwell on the matter too greatly.

It was much easier to enjoy one's self when one did not over-analyse one's motives.

Fran stared at him for a moment, Balthier gazed placidly back at her.

'You would extort the son of the Emperor with ransomed treasure?'

It was a rare event that he was able to shock Fran. It was almost worth it simply for the prize of startling Fran, even without the prospect of a veiled revenge.

A cunning grin slipped free of his façade of nonchalance, 'Why not? I need to perfect the art of blackmail and who better for a target than Vayne Solidor?'

Fran shook her head, 'You are like to be hanged.'

Balthier shook his head as they disembarked the Strahl and made their way to the Manse on Saccio Lane.

'Hung, drawn and quartered actually.' Balthier corrected her cheerfully, enjoying his game.

'Really Fran, if a man is to become a legend he cannot do so through petty forgery and smuggling. He must make sure to have his name on the lips of every man, woman and child in Ivalice.'

'As the fool who thought to blackmail the most powerful man in Ivalice; the commander in chief of the Archadian army, and suffered accordingly?'

Fran questioned dryly, Balthier scowled, though with very little actual rancour. It was simply the reaction needed to play out the jest.

'Fran please; give me some credit, I shall not be caught.'

'You are so confident of this, Balthier?'

They had reached the Manse and could see Rikken and Elza waiting for them by the large front doors.

Balthier turned and smirked at Fran, almost ready to deliver the coup-de-grace of his elaborate jest.

'Of course Fran; I am supremely confident that I can pull off such a caper once I have properly planned out the details. '

'Why?'

They stopped for a moment before heading up to the door to meet the other two and be introduced to the elusive Reddas.

Balthier was grinning with the anticipatory pleasure of the expected payoff that he would derive from his little game of words.

'Because I have something no other pirate has ever had.'

He was determined to draw out the suspense and Fran seemed willing to be an indulgent audience.

'And that is?'

'You, Fran; I have you.'

Balthier promptly pivoted on his heel and made his way towards Rikken and Elza. He did not wait to observe Fran's response. He smiled slyly where Fran could not see him as she hesitated before joining him.

This was the game, his way of making sure Fran knew how much he appreciated her, and part of the performance was to allow Fran the privacy of her reactions.

He did not seek reciprocity of sentiment; he no longer craved validation or assurance from his partner. He no longer wanted anything from Fran except the pleasure of her company for as long as she wished to give it.

That was his true gift to her; Balthier simply hoped that she knew it. He rather thought that she did.

Fran came abreast with him as he reached Rikken and Elza. Balthier, affecting his usual mien with the two port-based pirates (more facilitators of the trade than active members of the sky pirates fraternity, but no less important for the fact), contrived to affect a frown of irritation on his countenance and folded his arms across his chest.

'This had better be good; Fran and I are busy people.'

'Reddas wanted t'meet yer.' Rikken replied stolidly.

'And that is reason enough to inconvenience me, is it? I had not thought you would become the faithful hound to a pirate king, Rikken. Or did Reddas simply offer a larger bribe than Nylous, hmm?'

Neither Rikken or Elza replied (they knew him too well) and without a word Rikken turned and pulled open the doors to the Manse. Elza sauntered in ahead, presumably to warn her new master of their arrival.

Balthier deliberately did not ask Rikken anything about this 'Reddas' man, not because he was not afire with curiosity, but because he would sooner chop off his right hand than admit to being so curious to the other man.

There was a good chance that Rikken, silent and laconic, was well aware of how curious and conflicted Balthier was currently feeling standing in the large foyer of the Manse, the sea breeze scent accenting the air, and that alone added to Balthier's agitation.

Certainly Fran could sense his agitation as was evident when she stepped closer to him. She did not make any comment or draw attention to her action but her presence near by soothed Balthier all the same.

The double doors to one of the downstairs rooms opened and Elza strolled out, hips swinging provocatively.

''E'll see yer now.' She walked past Balthier and Fran with no more than a jerk of her golden tressed head towards the doors. Balthier glanced at Fran, who shrugged minutely, and then, affecting nonchalant unconcern, Balthier led the way into the large study.

His first awareness of the study and the single man in occupation was a mishmash of disparate impressions absorbed by the eyes before the mind placed their significance.

He saw a large bay window and billowing gauzy white curtains flapping in the sea breeze. The dark and shadow canvas of the ocean and the night sky picked out in relief through the window, a profound contrast to the creamy pastel and beige hues of the furniture and fixtures in the study.

The man behind the large ash wood desk, rising from the swivel chair, froze in mid gesture of greeting as Balthier and Fran walked in.

Balthier took in the balding pate, the wild, white sideburns (which were new and less a fashion statement than a reflection of a disinterest in appearance) and the ebony skin its own stark contrast to the white hair.

Mind and eye connected and recognition froze the blood in Balthier's veins.

The man behind the desk swore as he too recognised Balthier. The man's accent was a roiling mix of Naldoa Island sonorous rhythms and crisp Archadian inflection that Balthier remembered all too well, though it had been years since he had heard that voice.

Balthier's body reacted in a mixture of aggressive self-preservation and uncoiled rage that he had not known himself capable of. The dagger had no sooner jumped to his hand before he had flung it, with deft procession, straight at the man's head.

The older man ducked and the dagger twanged and shuddered as the tip embedded into the wooden frame of the bay window.

Possessed of an animalistic terror and fury, that he would forever deny being capable of hereafter, Balthier had leapt over the table top and caught the older man by the shirt lapels before the vibrations of the dagger had sounded in the air.

'You? How can it be….?' The man seemed more astounded by Balthier's presence than concerned for his safety as Balthier slammed him against the wall with one arm pinning his throat.

In response to the question and the recognition in the older man's eyes (all fuel to the fire of his screaming terror to be so recognised) Balthier punched the man in the jaw and watched him fall to the floor.

Fran, who had been momentarily too surprised to react, now rushed forward and caught Balthier around the chest. She jerked his arms, painfully, behind his back so that he could not continue to attack the man who slowly picked himself up from the ground, rubbing the blood from his chin.

Balthier's whole being seemed to reverberate with a near mindless terror. Something beyond reason that sang in his blood like the most sublime fury but shook his bones with gut wrenching fear.

'_Zecht.' _He hissed.

The Judge Magister rose to his feet, still appearing too surprised to react to the aggression he had just suffered.

'Ffamran? Ffamran Bunansa, good gods - _You_ are Balthier?'

Balthier twitched, freezing in Fran's arms. He wanted to yell out at the top of his lungs to drown the man's words in noise. He wanted to run as fast as he could from this Manse and Balfonheim altogether and never stop.

He did neither, frozen by shock and the monstrous, sickening sense that he had brought this on himself by invoking Ffamran's ghost.

'Balthier who is this man?' Fran asked coolly, still holding tightly to him, acutely away of his precarious state between flight and murderous aggression.

Balthier felt his lip curl in hate as he looked into the Judge Magister's eyes, '_Zecht_; a Magister of Archadia and a hound of Empire.'

A vague memory forced itself into Balthier's awareness as he felt Fran react slightly to his words and saw the shuttered look close down in Zecht's eyes. Balthier tried to follow the memory…..something Jules had said in Safrosa Bay, something about Zecht and…..

'I am Zecht no longer; I am Reddas now. The Magister is no more and my loyalty to the Empire severed most cruelly and bitterly.' Zecht was saying but Balthier barely heard him. He was still chasing that errant memory.

……..Jules and Zecht, Jules and Zecht…..what is the connection? What was it Jules said…….something about an illicit visit to……

Balthier sucked in a breath of horrified comprehension as the memory resolved itself all at once, 'Nabudis.'

Zecht had been speaking but upon hearing the name of the fallen kingdom froze mid-word; a look of exquisite, wild horror and grief chased across the broad planes of the older man's face.

'I know not what you refer to.'

Zecht said leadenly and his words were so close an echo to Balthier's oft spoken evasion ('I have no idea to what you refer') that Balthier flinched. He could recognise in Zecht's garish ensemble (too many clashing colours, too much fabric and texture) the garb of one trying to escape the steel and monotony of Judge's armour; the uniform of the Archadian escapee.

Balthier felt himself sag against Fran's arms, sickening realisation crashing over him. He struggled to find a question whose answer he wanted to hear. All too aware of the question he did not _need _an answer to.

_Nabudis……..it was Zecht….the fire of Nabudis was Zecht…..yet if that is so why is he here; and why is guilt laden on his every breath?_

'How long?' Balthier croaked and knew that Zecht would understand his meaning. They were both fleeing Archades now; Balthier merely had a four and a half year head start.

Zecht nodded his head slowly in understanding, the haunted, shuttered look still in his eyes.

'Seventeen months and fifteen days.' Zecht replied succinctly; exactly the time elapsed since Nabudis' fall.

Balthier shook his arms abruptly, and reluctantly, Fran released him. The momentary violence that had afflicted him had run its course; now Balthier merely felt hollow.

'They call you Reddas?' he made it a question.

The former Judge nodded, 'The name I chose.'

It was Balthier's time to nod in agreement. He understood implicitly what 'Reddas' did not say. He knew what it was to seize control of one's own will from another, after all.

'I am Balthier,' he gestured to Fran, 'this is my partner Fran.'

Reddas looked thoughtful, for a moment something like wry amusement passed over his features before being subjugated by the grief that drew taut his expression.

'Balthier? _The Cautionary tale of the Rogue Balthier_?' Reddas queried.

Balthier rolled his eyes, unable to resist the expression of annoyance. For the most part the obscure fable was not well known but every now and then some literary soul would try to make some pithy comment and Balthier had little choice but to grin and bear it.

'No,' he replied succinctly, almost petulantly, 'not remotely like that.' He muttered and again there was just the faintest hint of amusement quickly doused in Reddas' countenance.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence filled with the questions Balthier would not ask (for fear of being doubly burdened by the answers) and Reddas would not speak of in shame of the truth.

'Do you have an airship?' Balthier eventually asked, unable to endure the silence any longer.

Reddas, surprised by the abrupt change in subject, nodded. 'Yes.' A tiny smile, 'And, you, you stole that old Strahl from the hangars didn't you?'

Balthier nodded stiffly, not wanting to talk of _then_. 'You should take her out; your ship I mean.' He mumbled almost incoherently. Reddas frowned curiously.

Balthier shrugged, 'It helps.' He said simply turning away from Reddas and walking towards the doors to the study. Fran, moving like a patient, supportive ghost, fell into step behind him.

'The sky is too large a place for regret. If you have truly left the Empire behind you, do not waste the life you have locked in service to a past you cannot change. You should fly where memory cannot touch you.'

He was almost out of the doors and into the foyer when Reddas (Zecht – for Balthier knew that an alias was only skin deep) called after him.

'Do you not want to know what happened after you left the Capital? You do not want to know what has become of your father?'

Balthier could not be sure but he thought he heard a dark, maligned undercurrent of some deep and brutal emotion infect Reddas' tone upon the faint allusion to Cidolfus Bunansa, but he dismissed it as an imposition of his own imagination.

Slowly Balthier turned to face Reddas in the threshold of the study doorway.

'Why would I want to hear the reminiscences of a past neither of us will ever publicly acknowledge?' he queried dryly. 'The past is dead and buried where it lies and I have no will to rake over old bones.'

Balthier directed one arched brow at the other man, 'And I suspect you have even less incentive to do so, hmm?'

Reddas laughed, a harsh, caustic sound, 'Aye the past is dead; long live the past.' He spat.

Balthier, with Fran at his heels, walked out of the study and the Manse without a backward glance; Reddas' last words echoing loudly in Balthier's thoughts with every footfall.

Fran's hand reached out to snag his sleeve drawing him to a halt. Her eyes cool but gentle, no sympathy or pity in her regard, but an understanding that was greater than either.

'We fly?' she queried.

Balthier nodded, 'Yes, far, far away from here.'

_The past is dead; long live the past. _

_Zecht and Nabudis. _

_You do not want to know what has become of your father. _

* * *

_A/N: Two chapters to go!_


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Balthier's ascendance; the patience to fly; the will to live

_A/N: A quick thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing….I have hopefully managed to respond to each of you individually but collectively I would like to thank you all for the truly lovely, hugely flattering, reviews you have given me. ;) _

_Anyway…….here we go: The pirate apprenticeship of Balthier in a nutshell….and the introduction of Fran! _

* * *

_In the beginning he was treated appallingly. The rats in the Syren's bilge had better living quarters and diet than he did. _

_Yet for all that Balthier did not care. It was strange, considering the lap of luxury he had been raised in, that he had adapted to living hand by mouth so readily. Luxury and plenty was a state of mind he had discovered….and in Balthier's mind he was a king of the skies already._

_Though admittedly he was a king in a very low state of being; freedom being little more than a mindset for Balthier in the first months of his indentured servitude with Remus. _

_The day he was forced into the hot, metallic reeking, oil slicked mess of the Antarii's (Remus' flag ship) engine room and told to 'make himself useful' Balthier would have endured almost any form of humiliation and discomfiture just to stay close to such a wondrous feat of Hume engineering. _

_All day long and sometimes all night he toiled at the engines of the Antarii or the Messanthra or the Linctus, each airship different, each engine possessing its own quirks and foibles; within a year Balthier had learnt to intuit every nuance of the ships design until it seemed that without him the ships would simply not fly. _

_Thus, simply using a natural talent, engendered from birth and inherited from his father, further nurtured by Ludmilla and her fellow Moogles, Balthier made himself, an oft times denigrated and maligned but nevertheless irreplaceable part of Remus' pirating enterprise. _

_He might not be allowed within spitting distance of a cockpit but he was still flying, submersed in airships and engines and electrical components; his days taken up with the simple (in relative terms) considerations of how to extract maximum efficiency from already over-taxed engines with the minimum of resources. _

_He was flying and even as a passenger it was the greatest feeling he had ever known. _

_Of course, Balthier (the name had stuck and Ruthy, in particular, rather enjoyed his use of it) was not content to rest on his laurels. The cockpit and the pilot's chair whispered to him in his dreams and the Strahl (his Strahl – currently in Ruthy's inexpert, callous hands) waited for him to rescue her. _

_It was during that first year that Balthier learned patience. He learned to bide his time, to subsist in his own mind when the body suffered and his pride was all but snuffed out. _

_Thus in the beginning he waited, and he watched, and he learned the intricacies of his enemy; all the while biding his time for the day he could take the next step…that one step closer to his freedom. _

* * *

_**I.**_

_The day his luck changed and circumstance conspired to bring him closer to his heart's desire started out much like any other…….with an air pursuit and most of the (on this occasion) Dalmascan air guard on their tail. _

'Balthier! Someone – get that boy up 'ere, now!'

_The roaring outrage in Remus' voice travelled over the internal communications array as the Antarii shuddered and bucked, pounded and buffeted by the hail of strafing fire coming from the pursuing ships (Balthier had warned Remus that harassing the caravan routes in and out of Dalmasca would not go unnoticed but he had been summarily ignored). _

_Currently clinging to a bulk head and trying to stay upright while he worked on a knot of damaged wiring linking the auxiliary Mist exhaust coupling cables to the main exhaust valves of engine two, Balthier ignored the overheard command from the cockpit and continued his repairs._

_It was only when one of Remus lieutenant's physically came down to the engines rooms and manhandled Balthier away from the console he was working on, that Balthier realised that he might finally gain access to the cockpit. _

'Gods be damned. I need me bluidy guns an' I need 'em NOW!'

_Remus was berating one of his luckless minions unfortunate enough to be manning his weapons console in the cockpit (the console was obviously malfunctioning as sparks were dancing over the array). _

_Balthier was shoved into the cockpit of the Antarii (a larger, newer, and much more utilitarian manner of vessel than his beloved and lamented Strahl) by the lieutenant so hard he went sprawling to the metal grated floor. _

_Picking himself up Balthier was knocked to his knees again when Remus sent the ship into a deliberate nosedive towards the rippling, refinery dotted, golden swath of the Sandsea, attempting to dislodge the trail of smaller craft that continued to harry the Antarii with rapid fire. _

'Balthier, boy, get yer ruddy arse up and fix me guns. We're ruddy dead in the skies wit'out 'em.'

_Getting up was not altogether easy as Remus executed a simply astonishing series of mid-air acrobatics with the Antarii that caused an ache of longing in Balthier. _

_What he would not give to learn how to do as Remus did with such consummate ease. The airship and the pilot seemed to be but extensions of the same will. _

_Balthier hauled himself across the cockpit, clawing the backs of chairs and the metal plating of the walls, to reach the circuit breakers and relay cables behind the far wall panel. _

_Removing the wall panel Balthier merely took one cursory look at the blackened, fuel leaking cables and wiring in the hollow of the cockpit's wall. It was palpably obvious to Balthier (who knew and intuitively understood every nut and bolt and errant wire within all of Remus' ships) that drastic measures would be necessary to achieve Remus' wish for functioning cannons. _

'What yer doin' back there, boy? I need them guns now, or 'ave yer not noticed the bluidy dogfight goin' on 'ere?'

_Remus snarled as, with the deft touch and artistry of a master, the great brute of a man guided the Antarii (which was not a ship built with manoeuvrability in its design schematics) in and out of the spindling, interlacing, refinery towers with the ease of a bird in flight. _

_The virtuoso act of control and phenomenal piloting skill almost took Balthier's breath away, even as the whip lash speed and jerking movements threatened to induce a vicious bout of motion sickness. _

_Shaking off his envious admiration (as much as Balthier might hate the man, he nevertheless truly believed that Remus was the greatest airship pilot who had ever lived) Balthier moved determinedly over to the pilot's and navigator's control relays. _

'What're yer doin' boy?' _Remus snarled, one hand letting go of the steering rods to grip Balthier's wrist in a bruising hold as he reached out towards the console._

'What you asked me to do.' _Balthier purred, looking up to meet Remus' eye. It was both disturbing and oddly impressive that Remus was so in tune with his ship that he could take his eyes off the horizon and glare menacingly at Balthier. _'I am repairing your ship. Kindly let go of me.'

_Remus curled his lips, baring yellowed teeth as he released his hold on Balthier's wrist, _'Yer'd better know what yer doin' boy. An' mind that I'll be watchin' yer. I knows who sent yer t'me.'

_Remus was as paranoid regarding Nylous as the pirate king was of Remus' own intentions and both looked upon Balthier as a potential spy and a means of defeating the other. _

'Remus please, have I ever done anything to have you doubt me?' _Balthier rolled his eyes as pried the panel from the underside of the control console and ducked underneath to get a better look at the mechanisms innards. _

_Balthier, who had no desire to be a pawn in their battle for supremacy, nevertheless had to concede that this attitude of rampant opportunism and suspicion shared between the two men, who dominated his fate, made his job as agent provocateur all the easier. _

_He fulfilled the objective set by both men (that of possible spy and possible tool) merely by breathing in and out without needing to engage in any particularly underhanded acts of espionage. _

_Of course it was a testament to Remus overreaching paranoia and stupidity that he could contemplate even for a moment that Balthier would attempt to sabotage the very same ship he himself was stuck on in the middle of a fierce air battle with outraged Dalmascans. _

'Yer a damn deceitful bastard; yer'd have me throat cut in an instance if'n I gave yer t'chance,' _Remus accused, but with very little rancour as he threw the ship into a breath-stealing spiralling ascent, before plunging the steering rods downward in a near suicidal act of daring. _

_Balthier, his arms up to the elbows in the acidic, abrasive mesh of fuel leaking wiring and cables, bare flesh unprotected and fully aware that at any minute a fuse could blow and the discharge of energy would very likely cause his death, merely rolled his eyes at Remus' accusation. _

'Remus, I assure you, I will never cut your throat.' _Which was the truth; he would never make the man's death so obvious._

_In fact Balthier had no intention of allowing harm to come to the man who possessed a singular skill in airship piloting that Balthier coveted with as much fervour as Ffamran had once longed for freedom. _

_Hatred, vengeance, and a sense of delivering just deserts against the brutish pirate, was as nothing to the all-encompassing longing to learn to fly as only Remus could teach him that Balthier cherished above all else. _

_Of course, Balthier conceded ruefully, once he had attained his desired knowledge…..well...perhaps all that was prudent to say (even within the confines of his own thoughts) was that Balthier had learnt a great deal more from the pirates than merely the inner workings of their airship engines. _

_The morality of piracy made the depths of Archadian moral hypocrisy seem amateurish and Balthier had taken to its vagaries like a fish to water. _

_The Antarii shuddered in mid-air as a particularly tenacious pursuing craft managed to clip the right wing and main glossair ring with its last volley of strafing fire. Remus' curses very nearly turned the air in the cramped cockpit blue._

'Guns, Balthier, I need me guns.'

'Then you should have thought of that before you attempted to play follow the leader with half the Dalmascan airguard and took a direct hit to the weapons array. I cannot reconstitute melted components from thin air.'

_Balthier muttered in abstractedly pleasant tone, his mind racing through options as he recognised the impossibility of fixing the weapons command relay. _

'Do somethin' Balthier, yer ruddy arse, or we'll all be for the knackers yard. Fix me ruddy ship!'

_Balthier shifted up from his uncomfortable position curled up under the control console and, ignoring in his irritation, the hail of fire and bullets pelting the Antarii's hull and shields, glowered at Remus as he pulled himself up._

'I cannot fix your bloody ship if you persist in repeatedly engaging in air battles. You are the bloody pirate; can you not pull off one damned raid without attracting an entire battalion of air gunners?'

_Without waiting for a reply, and fairly sure that Remus would not risk his own life and the stability of his airship by reprimanding him for his insolence, Balthier slumped into the vacant navigator's chair (perhaps if Remus had a navigator he would not be such a poor escape artist) and pried open a front facing panel. _

'Balthier…what's in yer twisted little brain?'

_The Antarii was dancing through the air; bobbing and weaving and twisting through sky and cloud; poetry in motion in the middle of a battle to the death over the ominous, rippling mass of the Sandsea. _

_Balthier studied the navigation gauges and radar screens before looking up out of the window. _'Can you arrange it so that the majority of the pursuing vessels are directly behind us?'

_He demanded of Remus as his thoughts aligned, fingers dancing over the consoles. _

'Aye, I could, but they'd shoot out our back facing engines and blow us out o' t'sky.' _Remus replied reasonably. Yet even as he spoke he began to smooth out the Antarii's flight path so that the pursuing ships could close in on his tail. _

_Balthier was momentarily surprised to realise that that one action demonstrated that despite his words and actions to the contrary, Remus trusted Balthier – at least in some fashion. _

_It was food for thought, but not too terribly relevant at the moment. _

'They won't shoot out our engines, Remus, because we are going to do it for them.' _Balthier murmured distractedly while he tapped in commands from the navigators console to begin venting the exhaust fuel and spent Mist in one, highly combustible, action. _

_Remus, who was not educated but was not the buffoon Balthier had once considered him to be, began to laugh. It was a less than savoury sound. The man's wide, whiskered face scrunched into a look of savage enjoyment. _

'Yer evil boy, I like it.'

_Balthier, mildly irked to be referred to as evil, nevertheless shook off the criticism, and smiled inanely. _'I have permission to vent the engines?'

_Remus continued to keep the Antarii flying steady and, like fools, the Dalmascan pursuing ships closed in behind._

'Fire away.' _Remus almost howled. _

_Balthier, fully cognizant of what would happen as soon as the exhaust Mist reacted with the air, pressed the button to finish the command anyway. _

_He could not see the resultant explosion, though the echo of the liquid splash of sound buffeted the outer hull of the Antarii, but it did not matter, he watched the radar screen dissipate into static and resolve itself to show empty air. What was left of the Dalmascan pursuit squad was now in pieces too small to register on the screen. _

_Guilt and a sense of compassion for ones fellow man was one of the first things a neophyte sky pirate did away with; Balthier had barely noticed the loss of what little compassion he had ever possessed. _

_Still he did not garner any pleasure from his actions either, unlike his captain. _

_Remus fist came down hard on Balthier's back in a fiercely triumphant pound, knocking the breath from his lungs. _'Well done, boy. I reckon yer've earned yer wings now. There's blood on yer 'ands an' no mistake.'

_Balthier turned to Remus sharply, hope lurching within him, as Remus pushed the Antarii south-westerly and out of Dalmascan airspace._

'Wings?' _It was no more than an exclamation of air; a tangible utterance of hope. _

_Remus snickered, sly enough to detect the sudden intensity in Balthier's voice that he could not repress._

'Aye, I reckon after a dirty, vicious, move like that, yer pirate enough to learn to fly. Gods help yer, yer've more between yer ears than t'rest o' these lunkers, at any rate.'

_Remus turned in his chair to further berate the sundry sheepish minions trying to edge out of the cockpit in the aftermath of a sky battle that need not have happened if Remus had merely listened to Balthier in the first place. _

_However Balthier was not listening to any of that. _

_A small, cold, triumphant smile brushed over his lips. Looking out of the windows of the Antarii (not the Strahl, but still an airship of merit) Balthier's heart thumped in his breast. _

_He controlled Remus airships already, from the engines outward, now, entirely through accident and not design, he had gained his wings……tomorrow, tomorrow, he might even gain the keys to his freedom; all he had to do was wait. _

_Wait and plan and he had grown so good at that. _

* * *

_**II.**_

_Ffamran Mid Bunansa had always been blessed with a quick and nimble mind. He learned new skills quickly and adapted to new ideas easily. Balthier, inheritor of that intellect, capitalised fully on the endowment of brains Ffamran had granted him, not only to grasp swiftly the complexities of airship flight, but also to smooth his rise to prominence in Remus' pirate pack. _

_It proved to be a remarkably easy ascent to power._

_Balthier was not sure why but his cool-headed (some might say ruthless) actions the day of the Sandsea dogfight had apparently gone a long way to changing Remus' impressions of his indentured slave mechanic. _

_So much so, in fact, that with the occasional, fateful, interjection at key strategic moments, such as 'I have a suggestion' or 'Hmm, have you considered…' Balthier had manoeuvred himself into a position of trust and prestige. It was not long before he was involved in the planning and the implementation of some of Remus' most successful heists._

_There were missteps and miscalculations aplenty in the seven months it had taken to position himself just so. Some of those had been pure accident (and he had suffered for them) others had been deliberate to throw his detractors off the scent; primarily those who suspected he was leading Remus astray. _

_However the breakthrough, the moment serendipity smiled upon Balthier once more, was a while in coming. _

_It started off as another ordinary day. _

_Business had taken Remus to Bervenia to negotiate a ceasefire with Ruthy (who had decided, after many secret discussions with Balthier himself, that playing second fiddle to Remus was beneath her dignity – and with a few choice scraps of information Balthier let slip - she had set herself up as an independent operative). _

_Balthier, who had since been busy playing the two pirates off against each other and thus proving to the ever watchful Nylous that he was loyal to the task he had been set, had managed to make himself scarce during those negotiations (ostensibly by offering to check the engines of the Strahl, part of the non-aggression settlement – again thanks to Balthier's whispers in Remus' ear). _

_Reunited with his beloved airship Balthier had been too pre-occupied communing with his ship (and it _was_ his ship, no matter who claimed ownership of her. It was he, Balthier, who had saved the Strahl from the Draklor scrapheap) to notice the stealthy approach of two 'interesting individuals' into the private airship hangar._

'Why're we blowing up this one, Rik? It don't look worth the effort. Y'sure this is the bastard's ship?'

_A woman's voice floated through the Strahl's hull, Balthier, who had been checking the wiring in the cargo hold, heard the voice clearly and immediately went still._

'This is one a' 'is ships. An' it's 'ere, right where the Moogle said it would be, all's we got t'do is set the explosives an' even if that bastard Remus ain't on board when it blows 'e'll get the message t'get the 'ell outta Balfonheim f'good.'

_A rough male voice and the scuff of feet on the stone floor outside; Balthier's heart contracted in sudden horror – explosives, explosives on the Strahl? _

_Not bloody likely!_

_Having better sense than to burst out of the Strahl's hold in a highly visible explosion of righteous indignation, as such a move would likely lead to his less than heroic death, Balthier remained carefully still, straining his ears to hear more._

_As he suspected the two would-be bombers began work on forcing open the Strahl's boarding doors. He winced as one of the two scraped what he imagined was a ladder of some description up against the paintwork of the Strahl in an attempt to get to the door. _

'Careful you eejit, you want t'make it obvious we bin 'ere?' _The woman snapped._

'Shut up woman an' make yerself useful by keeping a bloody eye out for trouble.'

_Balthier, hidden in the Strahl, rolled his eyes in contempt at the two's antics. He doubted a herd of Behemoth accompanied by a full marching band could make as much noise as these two. _

_His own actions covered by the noisy ineptitude of the would-be saboteurs Balthier pulled open the cargo hatch in the floor of the hold and jumped down to the hangar floor underneath the Strahl. _

_Keeping his steps light he was able to duck under the belly of the Strahl and walk around the ship to come behind the two strangers (the woman with an impressive bosom and even more impressive mane of wheat gold hair and the man with the build and ragged looks of a quintessential Balfonheim native) before either one noticed. _

'Good evening.'

_Balthier gained a certain pleasure in the fact that the man on the ladder nearly fell off in his surprise and the woman holding their collection of tools and, possibly, explosives, had to make a swift grab for the bag of supplies before it hit the floor._

'Bloody 'ell, where t'hell did _yer_ come from?' _The woman demanded at the same time the man growled belligerently._

'Who the 'ell are yer?'

_Balthier smiled, _'Where I come from and who I am is not really pertinent right now. The pertinent issue is that you are attempting to fit my ship with a time delay explosive and I object to that, quite strenuously.'

'_Yer ship?_' _The woman turned sharply to her companion, reaching up to smack the man around the head, '_I told yer that yer ruddy picked the wrong ship.'

_The dark haired man ignored her, which considering the woman's ample assets and the fact that that slap had to have hurt, was no mean feat. Instead the man looked shrewdly at Balthier._

'I know yer.' _He muttered. _'I _seen_ yer in Balfonheim with Remus. Yer one of 'is men.'

_The man drew a throwing knife seemingly from nowhere and brandished it in a long, almost delicate looking, hand. Balthier folded his arms across his chest._

'Please. First you try to sabotage my property, somewhat inexpertly I should add, and now you insult me? I am most assuredly not one of Remus' men.'

_Balthier unfolded his arms to examine his cuffs (the recent upswing in his status had led to an upswing in his fortunes; it had been a relief to dress as befit his status once more) with nonchalant distain. _'Who are you anyway?'

_His answer was the flight of the knife from the man's hand. _

_Balthier, who had spent the last eighteen months weathering the storm of a violent captain and his sadistic former paramour's mercurial attentions, was fairly used to sharp, pointed implements being flung at his head, and so ducked accordingly. _

'Are you quite finished?' _Balthier demanded dryly as he plucked the knife from where it had scraped the stone floor of the hangar, _'I am trying to have an adult conversation and I would appreciate it if you would desist in throwing things.'

_The man and the woman were staring at him in something akin to incomprehension. Balthier had discovered through hard experience that when a man threw a knife at his head they were somewhat thrown off guard if Balthier reacted, not with a return of violence or with flight, but instead with mild indignation. _

_Violent people found it difficult to deal with a man who stood his guard and talked in words of more than one syllable. His vocabulary alone had saved Balthier from any number of fatal encounters. _

'Who the bloody 'ell are yer? Yer bloody mad.' _The woman sounded almost admiring as she looked him up and down. _

_Balthier affixed his practiced smirk to his face and relaxed his stance. He did not think that these two intruders really had any more desire to engage in pointless violence than he did, which was a relief. _

_Balthier, sensing an opportunity, allowed his smile to grow, engagingly, '_My name is Balthier, and I rather think that you and I can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, my dear lady.' _He purred towards the woman. _

_The man clattered down the step ladder as the woman returned Balthier's smile with a bold once over. _

_The woman's eyes ticked over the fine fabric of his shirt, the tight fit of his trousers, the lean lines of his body (wealth and luxury might be a state of mind but Balthier saw no reason not to advertise the state of his mind for the whole of Ivalice to see)._

'Yer don't say?' _The woman grinned tossing her hair back behind her and crossing her arms to cradle her phenomenal cleavage. The man stepped up beside the woman glowering daggers (but at least this time refraining from throwing any). _

'What the 'ell yer takin' 'bout; how c'n yer 'elp us?'

_Balthier's heart thumped heavily with the growing certainty that another milestone on his road to freedom had been reached. He had the means, the motivation and now, possibly, he might have found allies…..all he needed now was the method and the right time to make his ascent. _

_He smiled slowly and beatifically, _'I am presuming you wish Remus dead, hmm?'

_The two incompetent plotters looked to one another and then to him, slowly they nodded in assent, probably assuming that denying the fact would be somewhat pointless considering the evidence of their own actions. _

_Balthier's smile grew, each heart beat concise, a drum roll towards freedom. _'Marvellous.' _He purred, brushing his cuffs free of imaginary lint, he lifted his heavy lidded eyes insouciantly,_ 'So do I. Shall we come to terms?'

* * *

_**III.**_

_The auction house (or rather, the makeshift hangar shed built on the tiny purveema too small to be marked on any map) was crammed to the rafters with pirates, slave-dealers, brigands and assorted reprobates of low status. _

_Balthier barely noticed. His only thought was for his plan. Two years in service to Remus. Almost three years since Ffamran made his leap for freedom and fell into Nylous' pit. Now it was time; time to make another leap and hope to take wing once and for all. _

_In the folds of his starched cuffs the vials of concentrated fire Magicite waited. Balthier's fingers twitched at his side, ready to act. Impatient after so long of biding his time and waiting to spread his wings and fly. _

'Friends, companions, loyal customers; today we 'ave a treat for you, eh? A fine specimen of pure blood Viera!'

_The auctioneer's thick Rozarrian accented voice snapped Balthier's fraught, over-sensitized, mind from his own imminent deeds to the makeshift stage. _

'We start de bidding at t'irty t'ousand gil, eh?'

_Balthier blinked in surprise at the first consignment as she was dragged up on the stage. He had never in his life seen a Viera in the flesh. _

_The woman? - vision of loveliness? – that stepped onto the stage with the regal bearing and cool distain of a visiting deity gracing this den of Hume scum with her presence was the most remarkable specimen of female beauty Balthier had ever seen. _

_Impossibly tall yet almost delicately proportioned dressed in attire that would seem highly provocative on a Hume woman but which seemed merely natural and serviceable on this beauty; it was nevertheless not the physical attributes of the magnificent creature before him that so captivated Balthier's attention._

_It was her eyes. _

_The spotlight that had been deliberately turned on the woman to disorientate her cast her bronzed flesh in exquisite brilliant radiance. Yet her eyes, large, almond shaped, and defiantly turned onto the crowd, seemed to burn into his awareness, not because of any expression that lived in those shadowed eyes, but because they held no expression whatsoever._

_It had oft been said that the eyes were the window to ones soul, in which case, this woman's soul had long since left for pastures new. _

_Balthier knew, instinctively, with absolute conviction, that whatever fate had led this Viera to this miserable place and whatever cruel twists of coincidence had brought her so low as to be so chained, her _soul_ was flying free. _

_He recognised the look in the eyes of this woman; he recognised his own expression. The eyes of one who does not live for the body, nor reside in the flesh, but instead in the mind and the spirit. _

_It seemed to Balthier (who had never considered himself a superstitious person) that the presence of this divine Viera was almost providence; an omen that this was his time to truly fly. _

_As the bidding carried on with a vengeance, sweaty fisted men grasping ticket stubs and bidding boards, Balthier sidled up to Remus. Whether this Viera was indeed a sign of divine providence or not, Balthier knew a good distraction when he saw it. _

_He nudged Remus and nodded his head towards the Viera with a questioning look in his expression. Remus, in less than gregarious mood, not that the man was very genial company ordinarily, grunted inarticulately and shook his head. Not quite sure what motivated his words Balthier persisted._

'Ah, but look at her, Remus, a true blooded Viera. Quite a prize to take home to your lovely Maud, wouldn't you say?'

'Got no interest in no bloody rabbit wench, Balthier.'

_Balthier sighed elaborately as he carefully palmed one of the vials from his cuff. _

'Remus, in all these months, have I steered you wrong?'

'Do I hear any more bidders for t'irty nine t'ousand? Come now friends, goods like dis one come along but once in de blue moon, eh?'

'Bervenia.' _Remus growled. Balthier repressed a wince, covering up for Rikken and Elza's incompetence had been costly in terms of his relationship with Remus, but he had more or less smoothed over those minor suspicions. _

'Forty thousand gil!'

'Must you always bring that up?' _Balthier asked dryly, half watching the Viera on the stage. Something about the woman's poise, the tremor of alert readiness in her stance, suggested to Balthier that this Viera was ready to fly the nest. _

_Balthier sighed again, working on distracting Remus with his words to cover his actions as he shifted towards the man's gun holster_, 'I have said that what happened in the Aerodrome was a misunderstanding. I was not trying to escape, merely negotiating a better rate on fuel for the airship.'

'Forty-t'ree t'ousand gil -do I hear any more bidders for forty-t'ree t'ousand gil?'

'Yer a damned silver-tongued liar, boy, and yer should count yer lucky stars I don't hang yer from these rafters with yer own entrails.'

'Forty-four t'ousand gil to de man wit' de parrot, going once, going two times, going…'

_Balthier laughed; he had long grown inured to threats from Remus. His smile became insouciant._

'Perhaps you should. Though if you were to take that action I'm not sure your wallet or your wife would thank you. Liar I may be but I'm a lucrative one.' _He purred disinterestedly._

_The Viera exploded into action, as sudden and unexpected as a summer storm, just as Balthier managed to slip the powdered fire magicite into the barrel of Remus' gun. _

_For a few seconds, Balthier, like everyone else in the stinking shack, could only watch the ferocity and unleashed primal power and that was the Viera in action._

_Then, shaking himself into his own action, Balthier slipped from Remus' side and dashed through the slack-jawed crowd to light the first of his tapers on the vials he had liberally secreted all over the warehouse prior to the auction beginning._

_Balthier thought he heard Remus call after him, having noticed his escape, but he did not look back. _

_Ducking behind a table Balthier took cover as the Mist bombs, which he had slaved over in secret for months, ignited in the air and blew out the back wall of the shack. _

_In one lightening quick glance behind him, Balthier saw the Viera on her knees, almost forced face down onto the stage by a thick set ruffian, then he saw Remus, one eye blazing, bearing down on him and Balthier darted through the hole he had made in the wall. _

_Balthier ran. He ran like the wind. He ran like his life depended on it (which it did) and it was still not enough. It did not matter how fast he ran the purveema was only so many acres large and there was only one way off it. _

_Remus closed in on him at the docking bay where the Strahl (recently liberated from Ruthy – an orchestrated manoeuvre Balthier was rather proud of) waited. Breathless but determined not to show it, Balthier calmly faced Remus and his gun. _

'Yer pushed yer luck too far, Balthier.'

_Incongruously Balthier felt the urge to laugh. He smothered it and instead smiled slightly with a sardonic shrug of his shoulders. _

'One might say, considering how things have worked out, that I didn't push my luck far enough.'

_An odd flicker passed over Remus one remaining eye; an expression more subtle and complex than his usual bluff anguish or annoyance. Balthier could not identify it and did not try. He was waiting for the moment Remus pulled the trigger. _

_Three years and it had all boiled down to one man and a gun; Balthier's entire existence hinged on the outcome of one single tiny movement of a stubby finger on a trigger. _

'Aye, an now yer die, yer bloody toff.'

_Remus pulled the trigger and as the chain reaction of the misfire blew a hole through his chest Balthier thought he caught a look of pure surprise upon Remus heavy features. Then the man collapsed to his knees and fell heavily onto his side on the rickety boards of the docking bay. _

_For a moment Balthier held his breath; waiting, waiting, waiting; he watched Remus, holding his own breath in his lungs against the terror that Remus' chest would rise and fall once more. _

_It did not. Remus lay on the boards, the gun still in his loose grip, one eye wide and unseeing and his face still caught in a rictus of surprise. _

_Adrenaline coursed through Balthier's body in a searing wave. He breathed in and he breathed out as slowly, cautiously, he moved towards - not Remus, not the man who had tormented him and trained him -but instead a corpse wearing Remus' familiar face. _

_Balthier kicked his tormentor and his mentor's gun from his limp hand across the deck of the docking bay and crouched to make one last check to assure himself that Remus was gone and would never come back. _

_He looked into that one, infinitely wide and fixed eye, and obscurely felt he owed the man an explanation. _

'Powdered fire Magicite. My father taught me about it. Mixed with gun powder it packs quite a wallop, you'll find.'

_Tone conversational Balthier checked the non-existent vital signs of the other man and quickly got to his feet. _

'Right then,'_ He muttered to himself, _'time to affect that daring escape.'

_Balthier would never know how it was that he realised he was not alone. _

_He would never be able to explain how he managed to interpret the frisson of his nerves and the rising of the hair at the nape of his neck in such a way that he knew – _absolutely knew_ – that the person behind him was none other than the Viera from the auction, and in many respects he had concluded that it did not matter._

_Birds of a feather would instinctively flock together, after all. _

_He reacted to the whisper of warning from his hindbrain; the subtle certainty that unless he spoke now he would be in some considerable difficulty (he had seen the Viera fight after all). _

'Now, now, my dear Viera, no need to be hasty; I was going to invite you along, one unwilling guest of this Purveema to another, so there is really no call for violence, hmm?'

'You knew I was here?'

_He had never heard a voice like hers. _

_A voice that managed to be so perfectly modulated as to sound both flat and dead, monotone in delivery, but to carry an undercurrent of things unknown and unknowable, within each syllable that her simple question seemed to thrum through his entire being. _

_Balthier turned around and affixed his most charming and debonair smile to his face. _

'Process of elimination. That lot of braying slobs make so much noise, you, on the other hand, do not.'

_He caught a glimpse of the Viera's reddish irises and felt his heart leap to his mouth. When he looked into those remote, alien eyes he saw the sky. He saw the immensity and the vast reaches of the sky stretching upwards and onwards beyond Hume imagining._

_Vast, empty, distant, and filled with impossible promise. _

_Balthier, unable to look with impunity into eyes that seemed a window to everything he had ever wanted, turned sheepishly away and began to clamber up the boarding ramp of the Strahl. _

'Ordinarily I would be gentlemanly and let you go first, but frankly, I fear you might fly off and leave me.'

_Balthier wondered, distractedly, if the Viera could hear the tremor in his voice as he offered her his hand. He was not sure why he was offering her a seat on his personal escape vessel, but he knew, with that same peculiar, illogical sense of conviction, that he could do nothing less. _

_When the Viera ignored his offered hand and climbed up into the Strahl (his now; finally his) Balthier was almost overcome with a sense of rightness. _

_He could feel himself begin to shake with a growing sense of gathering momentum; a sense of velocity, as after so long planning and enduring and waiting, he was finally ready to ascend. _

'You fly?'

_Were the only words the Viera offered to him as she preceded him into the cockpit of the Strahl; the look she gave him, cool, incurious, but at the same time oddly amused, seemed to stir something in his soul._

'_You fly?' The question meant more than the Viera could ever know. _

_That one question seemed to be the distillation of a long, hard, convoluted journey. A Journey that had taken from him everything he was, including his name, stripped him of all that he thought would protect and save him and left him with nothing except himself with which to survive._

_And here, now, at the very culmination of that journey, the pinnacle of his ascent, this wild, distant, brilliant woman, with blood on her long clawed hands and her hair windblown in loose curls about her head, asked _him_ if he could _fly_? _

_Balthier thought that he could almost have wept in joy and pain and rapture but instead he answered her with a lazy smirk and insouciant shrug. _

'Surprisingly well, actually.'

* * *

_A/N: Whew! Next up Epilogue: Rabanastre!_


	39. Chapter 39

Epilogue: Drum roll and the players to their places go; the stage is set for the leading man

_A/N: I have always had the sneaking suspicion that despite his protests, Balthier's actions in the game (assisting Vaan, Basch and Penelo – acquiescing to Ashe's kidnapping demands so readily) suggested that he wanted/needed to be involved in the resistance against the Empire (in someway) a lot more than he might have claimed._

_Throughout this story I have tried to suggest that almost unconsciously Balthier is in fact trying to save Ivalice from herself (and the Empire) in his own, self-deluding and convoluted way….thus this story could only find a fitting end at the very moment of the leading man's true beginning. _

* * *

'The people walk freely but everywhere they are in chains.'

Balthier, lounging in his chair in a far corner of the ever-crowded Sandsea tavern, did not deign to answer Fran. Instead he savoured the taste of the cool ale in his tankard. There was sand in his throat and the hot, dry reek of the desert clung to the back of his throat.

Critically he looked over the balcony rail onto the main floor of the split level tavern and down onto the down-trodden heads of the Rabanastrans gathered by the bar.

It was easy to see what Fran meant, while as the people of Rabanastre were effectively free to continue living as they always had (barring a mass relocation to the subterranean maze of passageways euphemistically referred to as 'Lowtown') the presence of the Empire was obvious and heavy handed.

The talk within the tavern was all about the new consul's rousing and uplifting speech from earlier that very day. Balthier and Fran had watched it all from one of the ridiculously ugly spires of the cathedral roof, enjoying the irony immensely even if the acoustics were not all they could be.

Balthier did not need to hear what Vayne (don't call me Consul) Solidor said. He knew the script all too well, such a well worn and trusted mouthful of lies and carefully packaged deceits that tripped off the Solidor tongue like poison honey.

Though, Balthier conceded, Vayne performed the hollow act of appeasement very well.

'I wonder how he managed it?' Balthier mused under his breath, but Fran still heard him, she cocked an eyebrow as she pulled her tall glass towards her across the table.

'Whom do you refer?' she queried as Balthier played absently with his rings. Twisting them off his fingers and sliding them back on (it was intolerably hot in Rabanastre and his fingers had swollen with his expanding blood vessels, causing the rings to pinch).

'Our beloved new Consul Dalmasca, of course,' Balthier murmured. He lifted his brows insinuatingly, but kept his voice low, as a trio of clanking Imperials crossed below their table.

'You must concede that it is extraordinarily convenient that the sadly unlamented Basch Fon Ronsenberg takes it upon himself, for reasons lost to the living, to assassinate his King,' Balthier murmured in lilting voice, 'only for the Dalmascan princess to then commit suicide in grief allowing the Empire to assume command in the vacuum created by the fall of the Dalmascan monarchical traditional.'

Fran sipped her drink, 'I have found that the Hume world is full of such convenience.' She murmured coolly.

Balthier nodded but his brow was pinched in consternation, he tapped his fingers on the table top.

'I wish I knew what the point of it all was.' He finally conceded, two years suppressed frustration colouring his words, 'Dalmasca and Nabradia as a buffer zone is one thing, but it all seems a tad excessive if the only goal was to acquire a sandpit kingdom for Vayne to play in.'

Fran cast an amused look his way, 'I had thought we came for gold and magicite Balthier, do you seek the rare gift of insight in this venture also?'

Finishing the dredges of his ale Balthier smirked at Fran, 'Insight? Good gods, no. I have better sense than to go in search of illusionary treasure Fran.'

Fran shook her head minutely to shake her hair behind her back. She arched an eyebrow. 'I am glad. Even the leading man should not over-extend his reach.' She murmured with pointed humour.

Balthier fluttered his hand and nodded his head in an ironic parody of a partial bow. 'You wound me Fran.'

He glanced at the assorted patrons of the tavern with ill-concealed annoyance.

It was high noon in the city and too damned hot to be out and about (not that he and Fran could really achieve anything until dusk in any event) however the Sandsea was growing increasingly crowded and the ale was not up to Balthier's high standards, either.

Balthier was, in fact, seriously reconsidering this Palace heist. He had forgotten how much he disliked the desert city, especially now it was full of Imperials.

'Will this day never end? I fail to comprehend how a city state in the middle of the desert can have only the one tavern; what do these damned desert –dwellers do all day?'

Fran's smooth countenance quivered with amusement at his sudden outburst, 'Work, perhaps?' she suggested demurely.

Balthier scowled and waved his hand at the assorted lay-abouts in the tavern, 'I do not see any evidence of that here.' He pointed out petulantly. Fran smiled minutely but wisely deferred from making comment.

Balthier slumped into his chair and glared irritably into the empty depths of his tankard. Although not given to superstitions, omens or dubious 'instincts' (or at least that was what he told himself) Balthier could not quite suppress the feeling that this 'Goddess Magicite' trinket could end up being considerably more trouble than it was worth.

Accepting that his tankard was not going to miraculously refill itself (and that he had probably had enough considering his evening plans) Balthier rose elegantly to his feet.

He held out his hand to Fran, knowing she would ignore the solicitous gesture. 'Come Fran, I am sure there must be something mildly diverting to do in this gods forsaken place and I am determined to find it and partake.'

Fran finished the last of her drink and joined him. He bowed courteously for her to precede him down the flight of steps to the lower floor and out of the Tavern.

They strolled right past a table of inebriated Imperials and Balthier bit back a laugh when, turning to glance at the Mark Hunters notice board, he caught sight of the tattered, faded warrant bill with his grinning likeness on it. Evidently the Empire spared no expense to find only the keenest, sharpest minds to fill their armour.

For the rest of the day he and Fran drifted about the Muthru bazaar, before coming to rest on the rim of the south-gate fountain. There really was little else to do in this repressed and oppressed city under a blazing desert sun.

Perched next to Fran, on the lip of the fountain, Balthier trailed his fingers through the cool water while he watched the common people go about their business and waited, impatiently, for the sun to set.

'This trinket we seek, word has it that it is much in demand.' Fran murmured shifting her weight on the rim of the fountain beside him. 'The Empire's lust for magicite seems insatiable.'

Balthier shrugged carelessly, 'Airships to run and kingdoms to invade, Fran.'

In truth Balthier did not care for the so-called Goddess Magicite in and of itself. Oh, he already had a buyer lined up who would pay handsomely for a fist sized chunk of pure, undiluted Magicite, yet profit was a secondary goal.

Stealing from Vayne Solidor while he drank to the destruction of Nabudis held a far greater attraction in his mind.

'We should be wary of others with interests similar to our own.' Fran added trailing her own fingers through the cool, crystal clear water rippling in the fountain pool. Balthier saw her gaze sharpen slightly as a lone Viera drifted past them.

The Viera, although as faultless and pure in appearance as any wandering Viera Balthier had ever seen, seemed young and unsure in her stance. Balthier watched Fran as Fran watched the other Viera for a moment.

'Old Dalan is an ineffectual fool, Fran. He could not field a thief of worth if his very life depended upon it.' Balthier replied to Fran's veiled comment once the lone Viera had drifted away from view.

'It is rumoured he has links to the Dalmascan resistance.' Fran pointed out, turning back to him with her face as expressionless as ever.

Balthier did not comment upon the momentary whisper of wistfulness that had coloured her expression moments before when the Viera had crossed their paths. It was Fran's business and his intrusion would not be appreciated.

'And a more useless pack of insurgents I have yet to hear of,' Balthier scoffed instead, detaching his water canteen from his belt and offering it first to Fran. 'They make Hamish and his rabble, appear successful. How hard can it be to liberate a city of no more than a few hundred thousand people?'

Due to his slightly unusual working practices and the persistent rumour regarding his actions in the siege of Nalbina on behalf of the townspeople, Balthier was often accosted in taverns and secluded places by furtive men (and the occasional woman) seeking to elicit his aid in numerous ill-thought out acts of insurrection for various lost causes.

For his part Balthier found it all exceedingly irritating. Conversely Fran tended to find it highly amusing that for all his efforts Balthier had a greater reputation for his ill-advised forays into altruism than his many spectacular crimes; Balthier failed to see the humour, however.

Thus upon arriving in Rabanastre Balthier had summarily and rather less than politely rebuffed the hookai smoking, shrivelled up geriatric, Old Dalan, when he had suggested that Balthier might like to donate the Goddess Magicite to a 'good cause'.

Balthier was for this reason determined, despite the whispered misgivings of his own mind that bothered him like the clouds of tiny biting insects in the air (and the slight fear that he might be deluding himself), that this heist would go off without a hitch. He would rob the Rabanastran treasury blind and sell off the proceeds to the highest bidder.

He would not even _consider_ passing on any profits to the starving children he saw clinging to the shadows in Lowtown and he would not have any contact with the damned resistance.

He was a sky pirate; not an airborne philanthropist.

Even as the thought floated through his mind Balthier espied a skinny girl-child in non-descript grey and tattered rags dart out from one of the alleys between buildings. Her trajectory was fixed and focussed as the tiny little beggar dashed, bare foot, across the baking stone of the south-gate towards him.

Balthier tried to avert his gaze and willed Fran not to say a word, but it was to no avail.

The little girl came to a stop before him, all gangly limbs and huge, lost eyes that seemed to suggest to Balthier's less than cheerful disposition (children were not his favourite form of life, it must be said) that he was both the cause and the solution to all the hardship this child had faced.

The child's dirty fingered, clawing, little hands reached out towards him, 'Please mister do you have any Gil? My mama is sick.'

Boldly the little urchin plucked at the brilliant white of his sleeve and Balthier tugged his gold threaded cuff from her grip, narrowing his eyes at the child with open suspicion.

'Keep your hands to yourself, if you please.' He snapped (these Rabanastrans had very sticky fingers he had found, but Balthier was no easy mark).

Fran shifted minutely beside him. She said not one word, but the slight tickle of her long hair brushing his sleeve, was warning and prompt enough. Balthier glanced at Fran in exasperation. Her expression was smooth and implacable but her eyes were firm.

'Oh, for the gods own sake,' Balthier muttered ungraciously, pulling a small purse of low denomination Gil coins from within the confines of his vest.

'Here.' He pushed the purse into the little girl's hands, 'Now be off with you, and tell no one where you came by this Gil, or I shall find you.'

Balthier added pointedly as the little girl's eyes lit up with a near rapturous gratitude that Balthier found simply intolerable. She nodded once quickly and then dashed away into the shadows of the stairs that led to Lowtown.

'Not a word Fran. I simply happened to have a spare purse for emergencies, that's all.' Balthier muttered when he felt Fran's amused and pointed gaze on him.

The worst of Hume devised tortures would not force Balthier to concede that he had put together a purse of coins specifically for the purpose of giving to the poor. His reputation (at least the one enshrined in his own mind) would not survive the confession.

'Of course Balthier,' Fran demurred and he turned to glower at her petulantly. He blamed his ill-temper on the city of Rabanastre; he could barely wait to be shot of the place.

'Let's go Fran. Nono should have finished his tune up of the sky cycle ready for tonight and I am suddenly in all earnest to be about the business of stealing something.'

Once more as she followed him through the crowded streets of Rabanastre towards the aerodrome, Fran refrained from commenting on Balthier's mercurial and out-of-sorts disposition. However Balthier could almost feel, like a second sun, Fran's indulgently amused regard on his back.

There was a comfort in it, even though Balthier was convinced Fran was silently laughing at him.

Dusk found Balthier in much improved spirits.

The faints strains of an Archadian orchestral piece floated through the humid evening air as did the sonorous murmurs of conversation rising from those special guests of the consul who had come to celebrate Vayne's ascension.

Balthier, leaning against the wall of a building facing the high walls of the Palace gardens, glanced sideways at Fran with a sly smirk.

'Like taking candy from a baby Fran,' He murmured, anticipation in every syllable.

'A baby with a battalion of Imperial soldiers garrisoned within the palace grounds, Balthier.' Fran retorted her voice as soft as breath.

Balthier slid his hands down the front of his black and gold embroidered, stiff leather vest, still smirking faintly and eyes almost glittering with barely checked excitement.

'It's time Fran; let's go.'

Without a word Balthier and Fran sauntered calmly through the street behind the palace gardens, casually strolling past two Imperial guardsmen who gripped their pikes a little more tightly but then relaxed their guard when Balthier and Fran did not so much as glance at them while passing.

For this reason Fran's sudden about-face, pivoting beautifully on the heel of one foot, before launching a devastating kick with the other caught the first guard by complete surprise and he crumpled unconscious to the ground.

Balthier caught the other around the neck before he could utter a sound.

The armour of the Imperial cannon fodder had not changed in the six years since his departure from Archades. Balthier knew exactly where the collar of the armour chest plate parted to accommodate the neck guard that usually attached to the full helmet that this guard was very foolishly not wearing on this hot, arid, night.

Squeezing down on the guard's airway with one forearm across the man's throat Balthier counted down the seconds until the man succumbed to unconsciousness.

When Balthier looked up Fran had already crossed the street to the open drain hatch, which she levered up. Balthier began to drag the two unconscious Imperial soldiers towards the drainage hatch.

He allowed Fran the honours of kicking the two through the hole and into the stinking, filthy waters below, however.

After that it was a simple matter to retrieve the sky cycle from where they had hidden it in the storeroom of the building by the drainage hatch he and Fran had been loitering against.

They did not need the sky cycle but then again, they did not _need_ to steal from the Palace treasury in the first place.

Checking his gun (the altair tonight because it was light and durable, though loading time was a chore) Balthier took the passenger seat (he could fly a sky cycle but Fran would not let him near the steering levers of _her cycle_ so he was perpetually relegated to the backseat).

Fran revved the engines, though not loudly enough for anyone lingering in the gardens to hear, and the cycle rose gracefully, but eagerly, into the air.

Fran launched them forward and upwards, lurching over the wall of the Palace gardens, and dipping down into the covered portico cloister lining the gardens with the grace of living shadow.

These were the moments Balthier lived for.

Fran pushed the cycle at brake-neck speed through the now deserted gardens (the party having moved indoors to dine) and Balthier watched the white pillars and faded mosaics on the walls of the cloister blur into an adrenaline infused swirl of colour and anticipation before his eyes as he readied himself for his dismount.

Balthier did not _need_ to leap from the still moving cycle, catching his balance under him with the dexterity of a cat, and landing neatly before the doors of the Palace, but then again necessity had very little to do with their agenda for the night.

Fran waited for Balthier to enter the palace before she left him to hide away the cycle and sneak into the palace from an upper storey window (Balthier with his aristocratic diction, fine tailoring, and proud bearing could blend in perfectly with the guests mingling in the large open spaces of the palace; Fran could not, thus the need to separate).

Balthier took the time to note the formations of the guards and the quality of the jewels adoring the limbs and clothing of the collaborators and cronies that Vayne had invited to his shindig, before moving purposefully through the lower floors of the former Dalmascan royal palace.

Passing through one room (a library with old portraits of Raminas and his dead children lining the walls) Balthier helped himself to a very nice jewel encrusted letter opener and a gold plated wax seal stamp bearing the crest of house Dalmasca (useless considering no one from that house still lived but it would make an interesting souvenir).

Once he had finished indulging in his own rampant kleptomania Balthier rather swiftly found the recessed door, hidden under a tapestry, which led to the corridor to the treasury.

He slipped through it to find Fran waiting for him, her foot tapping lightly with mild impatience.

She quirked an eyebrow, 'Delayed were you?' she looked pointedly at the bulge in his belt pouch.

Balthier shrugged unabashed, 'When visiting royal palaces I like to collect souvenirs, Fran.'

Fran shook her head in mild distain at this evidence of his predilection towards pilfering bright, shiny objects, especially when said shiny trinkets did not belong to him.

'I have caught a scent. Sun and young sweat. I fear you have underestimated Old Dalan.' Fran nodded her head towards the secret door in the painted wall of the corridor that led to the treasury room.

Balthier frowned slightly, 'Well I'll be damned.' He swore softly, turning smartly on his heel and leading the way to the door, 'We had best make our entrance then.'

He might not have cared particularly for the Goddess Magicite but that did not mean he was about to let some sticky-fingered riff-raff under Old Dalan's employ walk away with his prize.

Balthier glanced briefly at Fran when he reached the hidden door and sought out the recessed buttons to disengage the lock, hidden in the carved frieze disguising the entrance. Fran nodded once, confirming that she could hear someone moving about inside the room beyond.

Balthier rolled his eyes in mild annoyance; it was clearly against the will of the fates that his life should be simple.

The door to the treasury creaked slowly open on badly oiled hinges and he entered swiftly, Fran at his heels, as an insultingly young, appallingly dressed, and slack jawed _boy _turned around to gape at he and Fran.

Immediately Balthier spied the chunk of faintly glowing crystal stone (the Goddess Magicite) pulsing in the boy's sweaty fist. Balthier felt his lip curl in annoyance; just what he needed, another Rabanstran street urchin to deal with.

'Impressive.' Balthier purred, though he meant quite the opposite.

'Who are you?'

The youth demanded as Balthier entered the extravagantly decorated treasury room, which was gratifyingly filled with shiny and sparkly trinkets, trails of ancient coins, and curios that might fetch a pretty Gil in certain markets.

Balthier, acutely aware of Fran at his back, her presence the one constant in his life, found himself oddly tickled by the question posed by the vacant eyed, sweaty-lipped and callow youth before him.

_Who are you? _

That was the question wasn't it? Who was he; the man he pretended to be or the boy he could no longer see in the mirror?

Was he a thief, a pirate, a liar and a spy? Or was he something else, some manner of man the measure of which even he could not fathom? Was he the sum and substance of his dreams or merely the totality of his own failings?

Perhaps he was both, and perhaps he was neither.

Perhaps he would never know; perhaps, as Fran had said, it was not the answers that made life worth living but the questions themselves.

Here and now, with his partner at his back and this foolish young thief before him, the boy all aquiver with fear and his own pride, Balthier found a slow, triumphant purring smirk curling over his lips.

_Who are you? _

Well, there was only one answer to that question, wasn't there?

Insouciant, darkly amused, and impossibly confident that whatever life threw at him he had the means to triumph regardless, Balthier gave his answer; the _only _answer.

'I play the leading man, who else?'

* * *

_A/N: To all who have read this story; I hope that you have enjoyed reading this tale as much as I have enjoyed writing it._

_Spikey44_


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